The Snake's Successor
by Nightangel52
Summary: When Naruto was a baby, Orochimaru kidnapped him with the goal of making him his successor. Watch as Naruto is raised in Oto as Akuma with the goal of becoming Otokage and destroying the Hidden Leaf Village. (Serious Naruto) (Better? Orochimaru) (Manipulative Naruto) (Strong Naruto) please rate and review to make my story better.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, or any other anime/manga for that matter. This is just a parody and all rights belong to their specific owners.**

 **1212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212**

Orochimaru smiled as he looked over the recovering Konoha from his perch on the Hokage Monument. It had been a week since the Kyuubi Attack and his sensei was beginning to discover Orochimaru's many experiments. It was only a matter of time until he found him, so he figured that he would leave now instead of risking losing all of his precious research. He already moved all of his research findings and material to a location that he wanted to found a village in. It would be what he always wanted Konoha to be… a place where people could start anew and a place filled with knowledge.

He even had a follower by the name of Kabuto. He would stay here under the pretext that his memory of serving in Root was erased by the Yamanaka Clan recently and was adopted by the head surgeon. Orochimaru sighed when he began to think about this. He would be all alone in his new village, and it was extremely boring experimenting on people with no-one to witness it. Not many people knew this, but he really did enjoy teaching young minds. Sure most people would find his teaching material a bit evil, but in his new village he'd make his experiments volunteer only for shinobi and civilians. Honestly… that Tenzo kid who survived his experiments would be one of the strongest shinobi in the village because of him. Sadly, he could not carry the boy with him to his village so he would leave him here to be found.

Orochimaru shook himself out of his thoughts on the village again. Now what was he thinking about again…? Oh yes, who to bring with him to his future village. While he did want to be immortal, he did not want to be ruler of a village all of his long eternity. He would rather travel around, learning new things as he did instead of being in one place constantly. Maybe Anko would be a good choice for his successor… no, Orochimaru changed his mind seconds after thinking that idea. While Anko was sure to come with him while escaping the village, she was too kind hearted to lead a village or even be his apprentice for that matter. She was a follower, not a leader from what Orochimaru had seen, even though she would do whatever Orochimaru told her to without question. That was unfortunate, he had put a lot of work into Anko. Oh well, he was sure he would find someone… better… suited… Orochimaru slowly stopped his thoughts as he looked down to the Fourth Hokage's head.

A smile that truly belonged to a snake more than a human grew on Orochimaru's face as a plot began forming in his head. What better way to receive a successor than to raise one from scratch? Yes, yes, he would be exactly the right pick for the job. He had the heritage after all, and a tailed beast to boot. While Orochimaru did not show it, he was incredibly loyal and only wanted to strengthen his village. His loyalty was only broken when Sarutobi had made what he thought was the wrong choice in hokage, therefore weakening the village and making it no longer his village. The village he created would be different, it would be the strongest and would eventually destroy Konoha to show them what their decision had cost them. He chuckled slowly as he thought of all the villagers reacting to the sound of their village burning and their shinobi dying. Hey, that gave him an idea… The Village Hidden in the Sound, or Otogakure, sounded like a fine name for a village didn't it? Yes, that name would do greatly…

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

Hiruzen sighed as he looked over a crib with a small, blond child in it. In another few weeks the boy would be taken to the orphanage and taken care of there. Although, the more the old man looked at the boy, the more he wanted to just give the boy to his son to take care of. There really was no-one who could care for the boy at this time though. Jiraiya had firmly stated that he could not take care of the child on the road and his spy network was very important to Konoha. Kakashi was still suffering from the pain of losing almost everyone, if not everyone, close to him. He still wasn't convinced Orochimaru wasn't a pedophile or experimenting on the people of Konoha. On top of all that, Tsunade had flat out refused to take care of the boy because she always traveled and the boy looked too much like Nawaki from the picture he sent her.

As Hiruzen left the boy's makeshift room in the Sarutobi Clan compound, he couldn't help but think about his wayward student. He had changed ever since Hiruzen had overlooked him for position of hokage. Orochimaru had brought up some great points of why he should rule instead of Minato, but he had always seen him as too much like Danzo. Of course, he knew that without Danzo Konoha would not be nearly as strong as it was now, but that was why Danzo needed to be there instead of Hokage. Hokages had to be people that everyone looked up to, the ones who could do no wrong and defend their people. Being like that got them more jobs after all. People like Danzo were much better suited to handle things like assassinations or conspiracies that resulted in deaths of many. Orochimaru would be great for that position, but he had his eyes set on hokage.

Hiruzen was cut off by his musings by a baby's cry and immediately went to Naruto's room. He hastily ripped off his robes to reveal his battle armor and summoned Enma before breaking down the door in a battle-ready stance. What he saw almost made him drop Enma and growl in anger.

"Orochimaru… I should have known it was you who would do something like this." Right in the middle of the room was Orochimaru with Naruto in one hand and the sword he had recently stolen from Kusagakure.

"Why hello sensei," Orochimaru said in that mocking tone of voice he always used in battle. "I don't believe we've ever fought since our little bell test have we?" Orochimaru blocked an overhead strike from Hiruzen and jumped back before the weight became too much.

"As much as I would love to stay and chat sensei, I must be going now. Little Naruto and I will be going off to learn immortality. Until next time sensei…" Orochimaru smiled before putting away his sword, Hiruzen would rather not say how, and summoning three giant snakes to cover his retreat.

"Damn you Orochimaru!" Hiruzen yelled as he suddenly had to deal with tree snakes attacking his compound. He only hoped none of his family would be killed by them.

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

Orochimaru chuckled slowly as he leapt from tree to tree to the location he planned on building Otogakure in. He silently congratulated himself on leaving at this time instead of waiting for his sensei to find his research. Jiraiya was scheduled to come to the village in about a month and it would be messy if the two were to battle. Oh well, good planning skills do come in handy. As he began thinking about his village and how he was going to 'convince' the feudal lord to allow him to build one Naruto began to cry.

Orochimaru sighed and began burping the young child. "It is alright little Naruto. I am going to make you the most powerful ninja on this planet, and you will be the one who will make the Hidden Sound rise to greatness. Of course, we will need to change your name and look when we get there, wouldn't want hunter nins to find you after all. How does Akuma sound? Naruto was a stupid name anyway." Orochimaru saw how Naruto, no, Akuma began to giggle at the new name. He guessed that meant he liked the name.

The rest of the trip went off without a hitch and Orochimaru found that in the short time they had been traveling, he had already became attached to the brat. With a few earth style jutsus that had Akuma clapping his chubby hands, the beginning of Otogakure was formed. In the future, it would be thought of as a village where anyone could have a fresh start in life, where scientists could achieve their wildest dreams. Where if you didn't have a bloodline trait, you could have a new one implanted, and even if you didn't you were still thought of as valuable. It would be a place where the impossible became possible. But, that was still a large way off, right now it was little more than a hole that needed all of Orochimaru's material moved in. However, thanks to a boy barely a week old, it would become the strongest village in history…

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

Jiraiya sighed as he surveyed the damage of the village he loved. He had left a week ago and had just returned as quick as possible to the news that Orochimaru had left the village and had destroyed half the Sarutobi Clan on his way out, as well as kidnapping Naruto Uzumaki. He had barely been able to control himself when he heard a few villagers say that the two demons of Konoha were gone. Unfortunately, when he returned the trail was already three days old. As it was hard to track Orochimaru on a three hour trail, a three day train was pretty much impossible, even for him.

However, Jiraiya had already promised himself something. He would stop at nothing to find his godson and old best friend and return them both to the village. He would take care of Naruto instead of running like he did when he was born, he still thought that if he had been there to take care of him then this wouldn't have happened. Jiraiya sighed and changed course from the bathhouse he was going to go do research on. He would go to the hokage's office immediately this time, and nothing would stop him from finding his godson.

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212212121121212121212

 **Well, how did you guys like it? I've been toying around with this idea for a while and finally decided to try and write it. Now, I will be the first to say I am not the best writer on this site, and I am not trying to be. I will still try the best I can and if you guys could review to tell me things you think I did wrong or things you guys think I should add, don't be shy. This first chapter actually wasn't that good to me but to be honest, first chapters and summaries are the bane of my existence. Finally, this story will not be on a schedule as I have work, school, surgery recovery, and a DBZ story I have neglected for too long to do. I hope you enjoy the story and please rate and review.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, or any other anime/manga for that matter. This is just a parody and all rights belong to their specific owners.**

 **Also, since Orochimaru did not bring Anko with him this time, she does not have the curse mark or have as much of a hatred towards him (though it still is pretty big)**

 **1212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212**

Orochimaru sighed in his research lab in Otogakure. His village had about 100 shinobi all from the Fuma Clan that was the major shinobi force in the Land of Rice Patties. He was going to wait a few years until changing the name to the Land of Sound. A crash reminded Orochimaru of a promise he had made a few months ago when Akuma learned how to crawl. He would NEVER recruit a child below 3 years old to Oto.

Sure, Akuma was a good kid, to Orochimaru at least. He was quiet, attentive, and only cried when he absolutely needed to except when he was around anyone else. When he was around others he actively tried to be annoying. Of course, he was also curious which while good for the future, was disastrous for a child in a laboratory.

Orochimaru slowly turned around in his swivel chair to see Akuma trying to hide behind a few vials and looked down to see the DNA formula that he was trying to perfect to recreate the Rinnegan spilt on the ground. He could see why Kabuto attempted to get a restraining order from the child now. Orochimaru shrugged and went to go pick up Akuma. He figured the formula wouldn't have worked anyway, Senju DNA plus Uchiha DNA surely could not have been the key anyway.

Orochimaru continued to repeat his favorite mantra of the last few years 'only a little while more' as he put the baby in bed. When the kid grows to be 2 and a half years old he would finally be able to be trained. According to ninja history, it would be best to only train him in the basics until he reached age 4. That was when the chakra system more or less finished adjusting to the point to where using chakra extensively would not harm the user.

After putting the child that seemed to have the goal of destroying every project in his village, Orochimaru returned to his laboratory and sat at his desk. Around him were stacks of papers about various intelligence reports and results on experiments. One of the requirements for the Fuma Clan to join Oto was to give them a kekkai genkai. He HAD been attempting to give them the legendary eye jutsu, so he could possess one of their bodies in the future of course, but someone had ruined that.

Maybe that wasn't the answer anyway… perhaps instead of recreating a bloodline, he should create his own. Since the Fuma Clan was known as the best shuriken and weapon users in the world, maybe a bloodline that made them reform and form metal was the trick. Orochimaru stood up and wrote a note to remind himself to get his scientists hidden in the Land of Wind involved in this study. Perhaps if he altered their blood to take in elements from the air and exert them as metal… Or maybe have their blood have an abnormal ability to produce more iron and exert it through sweat pores as the metal…

"Um, Orochimaru-Sama?" a Fuma Clan member muttered at the doorway to the snake sannin's office/laboratory. She was a woman who seemed to be in her early 20s and had been chosen as Orochimaru's assistant thanks to her attentive nature and lack of murderous intent towards the terror that is Akuma. She wore the usual Oto shinobi gear, a purple vest with black pants and a white undershirt, but did not wear the usual mask adopted by many others. She wore her green hair in a ponytail that reached her lower back and had a fuma shuriken attached to her back. Naifu also was one of the more serious shinobi of the village and had been one of the few that refused to receive a new bloodline trait. She was a chunin and was a sensor who was actually attempting to be considered for the future Oto Jounin Exams. These are exams very similar to Chunin exams except that there were no teams and it was not open to the public. Anyone not a shinobi was banned from watching the exams to prevent spying. Also, the requirement to apply was rather hard to accomplish as you had to be jounin level in 3 skills and complete 100 missions with at least 15 B-rank. During the test, the applicants had to show off their skills, pass a test filled with things all jounin should know, and show their mission record.

"Yes, Naifu, what is it?" Orochimaru asked.

"We have two new recruits at the recruitment center named Misumi Tsurugi and Yoroi Akado wanting to join sound. They want to become stronger and have signed up for the Enhancement Program." Orochimaru smiled at that last part. The recruitment building was at the capital of The Land of Rice Patties and had an option for the sign up form new recruits received. It was different for civilians and ninja as civilians joined the academy in Oto that was recently opened and ninja went through a test to see where they will be put in the ranks. There was also an option that put them in the Enhancement Program, where they were experimented on to give them special abilities. If they worked they were applied to multiple volunteers who would form a clan and pass on the new genetics to their offspring.

"That is very good news," Orochimaru said with a chuckle. "And how old are these two?"

"11 and 12 respectfully. They came from Iwa after their adoptive father was murdered by a ninja right in front of them. Will their age be a problem sir?"

"No, not at all Naifu. In fact, it is better to have young recruits as they have more time to adapt to the experiments and more time to get stronger. Soon, I will actually be traveling the world to pick up a few young ones to join our forces."

"Very well sir. I will go get the recruits ready for experimentation now." Naifu vanished from sight and Orochimaru knew she would be at the recruits soon. He had little doubt she would be promoted to jounin in the exams and was looking forward to seeing her participate. Now then… back to his research. What should he give these recruits hmm…

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

(Time Skip: 1 year because why not)

Orochimaru smiled as he looked down in the underground arena that was built a few months ago to hold the jounin exams. Otogakure was now fully complete and was an extremely large cavern that had seal reinforced roofs so that nothing could go through them or collapse them. There were buildings all throughout the village and a monument like Konoha's on one wall of the cavern. The stands were about a tenth of the way filled with multiple shinobi from Oto. In the past year over 200 ninja had joined the village. While most were no-named missing nin or civilians who became genin, there were a few chunin and jounin that had joined the village as well.

Speaking of which, one of the jounin was approaching him right now. Suien was a ninja from Takigakure when Orochimaru met him and he immediately took an interest in the man. He was on a mission to investigate his village and he noticed early on that Suien wanted power. He told the man he would give him that if he joined him and helped him further strengthen his village. Suien accepted and brought about 10 more ninja form Taki with him, including one participating in the Jounin Exams named Suika. Suien had long spikey hair, small dark eyes, and a goatee. His hair was a grass like green and he wore a dark blue jacket, grey pants, black sandals, and a bandana with the sound symbol etched into the middle of it. He was about 28 years old and was one of the strongest ninja in the village after personal training from the snake sannin.

"Are you ready to begin Otokage-sama?" Suien asked as he kneeled behind his otokage.

"Yes, begin the exams as soon as you are ready." The written portion and mission sheet review had already ended so now all that was left was the three skills demonstration. For ninjutsu you had to demonstrate at least 10 jutsu and 2 different chakra affinities, for kenjutsu you had to fight against another jounin who was an expert in kenjutsu, for medical ninjutsu you had to show an example of great chakra control and had to heal a heavily injured boar, the list continued on but there was a test for everything. Also, if a person showed a skill unique to them it counted as one of the three required. This was also why he selected Suien as the proctor of the exams. He was skilled in kenjutsu, ninjutsu, taijutsu, and barrier ninjutsu and could even summon a large catfish called Konenmaru.

"Very well my lord," Suien jumped down to the arena floor below and pulled out the list of applicants. There weren't very many as the village was still new, in fact there were only 6 of them. (A/N: I will not be showing all 6 of their exams. I am only doing this even to show you all what the battle system will be like and he skillset of a few semi-important characters) "First up is Suika, will Suika please come down here." Suien heard a yell and a cry of 'how dare you pervert' and sighed as Suika came towards him. If he passed, Suika would be the youngest jounin here at 16 years old, that is if his womanizing habits didn't get him killed beforehand.

"Who'd you piss off now Suika?" Suien asked almost bored.

"Some chick named Naifu, I swear it was an accident! I didn't really mean to grab her down there…" Suika said while rubbing the back of his head. Suika had a head of long green hair that reached his shoulders in length. He also had black eyes with green eyebrows. He wore a sleeveless black shirt, a pair of grey pants and a blue and orange jacket. No matter how many times he told him to get rid of the awful color, Suika just wouldn't budge on the matter.

"Uh-huh. I'm sure. Now what three skills will you be showing off today?" Suien asked with the patience of a man who's known Suika for a while.

"Summoning Jutsu as a special skill, ninjutsu, and taijutsu."

"Very well, let's start with your summoning jutsu. Remember to try and not use a lot of chakra as the ninjutsu portion is next." Suika nodded his head before biting his thumb and slamming his palm to the ground. After the smoke from the technique cleared the audience of shinobi gasped as they saw a waist high black and red spider glaring at Suien. Orochimaru meanwhile was leaning forward in his seat as he saw this. Summoning contracts were rare, for one of their ninja to have one was extremely valuable to the village.

"Very good, Suika. Now unsummon him so we can start the ninjutsu portion." Suika nodded again and unsummoned the spider. "You will have to prove that you can use two chakra affinities and use ten ninjutsu. The fall down here didn't make you forget how to do them right?"

Suika scowled and began making hand signs. (AN: showing him do each jutsu is boring so I will not do that) In the end he made 7 fire style jutsus and 3 earth style jutsus including; Fireball Jutsu, Mud Wall Jutsu, Mud Dragon Jutsu, Fire Dragon Jutsu, Mud Bomb Jutsu, Fire Vortex Jutsu, Smokescreen Jutsu, Fire Spit Jutsu, Flamethrower Jutsu, and finally Flame Bomb Jutsu. In the end the arena was covered in smoke and scorch marks. Suien had never been more glad that Orochimaru installed ventilation seals in the roof of the village. That smoke smell would have never gotten out otherwise. In fact, the village might as well have been outside with all of the special seals like the air currents and light seals.

"Okay *cough* *cough*, finally is the taijutsu test *cough*," Suien said while trying to cough out the smoke he inhaled. "To pass this, you and I will engage in a taijutsu spar. If I deem you strong enough to pass or you defeat me then you will become a jounin. Prepare yourself," as he said this Suien dropped into a taijutsu stance as well as Suika. Without further warning, the two launched themselves at each other as threw a punch at the other.

The two hit the others' fist and jumped back before Suien kicked and Suika blocked. Suika attempted to punch Suien in the jaw but his elder dropped below the punch and delivered an uppercut that launched Suika a few feet away. Suika flipped around a few times before landing on the ground in a squat and charging again. He reached his elder again and decided to try and use a kick, which was caught. He then grabbed the ground with his hands and channeled chakra to them before throwing Suien away with his feet that he had yet to let go of.

Suien landed gracefully and threw a hard punch at the charging Suika which landed, flattening Suika who rolled away from a stomp. Things continued like this for a few more minutes until Suien eventually won by grabbing Suika in a full nelson and grabbing his neck to snap it. "Congratulations, you pass," Suien said with pride in his voice. Suika smiled a bloody smile before falling forward on his face, unconscious.

Suien sighed, all pride now gone out the window with Suika's consciousness. "If only I could demote him… Alright, next is Naifu Fuma. Will you please step down here?" Orochimaru's assistant arrived in a swirl of wind which just so happened to pick up a rock and drop it on Suika.

Before Suien could tell her to list what skills she would be demonstrating she answered, "Today I will be demonstrating sealing, medical ninjutsu, and sensory skills."

Suien nodded and then pointed to himself, deciding to test her sensory skills. "What chakra affinities do I have and what level of chakra do I have?"

"Water and Wind chakra affinities and you have low kage chakra levels. Very impressive sir."

Suien smiled broadly at the compliment. "Well at least one of our jounin applicants know how to show respect. Here, I want you to make an explosive note, chakra sealing note, and a barrier note." He handed Naifu three pieces of paper and in an astounding five minutes, the required notes were finished and handed back for later use by the village. "Very good, we need more sealers in Otogakure," he complimented as he looked over the seals for any mistakes and finding none. "Finally, we will bring in a boar while you give us an example of great chakra control."

Naifu nodded her understanding at this command and pulled a handful of colored sand. What she was about to do required great chakra control and was the requirement for being a master medic. She closed her eyes in concentration and slowly separated each color of sand with only her chakra. Five minutes later, she finished and allowed the sand to fall to the ground. She did not get to rest as she wiped some sweat away from her brow and set to healing the boar that was sent in. it had a large cut that almost dissected it if it wasn't for how it was brought in. Naifu pulled out a needle and some thread and slowly sewed the creature back together after setting the internal organs back in place. After she finished that she healed the cut together and was promoted to jounin.

Orochimaru looked down in interest as his assistant went back up to the stands. While she was not suited for combat at all, she was still a decent fighter if he remembered right her true talent was he medical ninjutsu and long range shuriken attacks. Judging from what he had just seen, she had the potential to become as good of a med nin as Tsunade herself, well maybe that was stretching just a bit but still. He really should get Kabuto to train under her whenever he was older. Anyway, it seemed like that Suika boy would be a good ninja in the future as well. He may let him train little Akuma-kun when the boy reached the right age. He would not be able to train him constantly after all…

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

Akuma was bouncing in place as he waited for his father to return from the jounin exams. He had learned how to talk long ago and was currently using that ability to annoy the hell out of his babysitter. He knew what he was doing, and he enjoyed it. To him anyone who couldn't handle an annoying kid wasn't skilled enough to defend him. In reality, he was calm and quiet most of the time and was always excited to learn new things. He was at a civilian high schooler's level of reading and had already read multiple informative books that enabled him to have a higher vocabulary than most genin. His father would not accept anything less from his successor after all…

"Hey, hey, hey when will papa be back old man? Will it be later or soon? Hey, hey, are you ignoring me? Papa says ignoring people isn't nice." This went on for a while and Akuma would be lying if he said that he did not take immense pleasure in it. He was currently dressed in clothing reminiscent of Orochimaru's cloths as a genin, not that he knew that, and had spiky black hair. Akuma didn't know that his hair had been dyed in a small attempt to hide his identity but if he did he probably wouldn't care.

His babysitter, some teenager named Mizuki who apparently was off on a "training trip" with his also traitor sensei. "Oh my god, do you ever shut up?!" Mizuki finally snapped before he began to cower after being hit by a large amount of KI (Killing Intent).

"What did you just say to my child Mizuki?" There was no mocking tone from Orochimaru this time. There was just a voice as cold as steel and a blade just as cold at his throat. Before he could even mutter out an excuse he was carried off by two sound chunin who were equally as angry at him for what he said to 'Akuma-sama'. Orochimaru looked at the Konoha genin get carried off to the experimentation labs before turning back to Akuma with a sigh. "Must you do your little tests on every babysitter you get?"

"But father, if they can't handle being annoyed then how can they be effective ninja enough to defend me?"

Orochimaru sighed again and put his head in his hands before clapping, startling Akuma. "True, very true. I wish I could have brought one of the babysitters you actually like but they were all at the exams."

Akuma shrugged and shakily stood up to his feet to walk to his father. Orochimaru still couldn't contain his shock at the boy some days. He was a genius that was as smart as people 4x his age and could hold an intelligent conversation with him but still could not fully walk. That wouldn't be until a few months when his training would begin. He still couldn't make up his mind of whether or not he should augment Akuma's abilities like he did for those two recruits last year of the many others he had helped. Speaking of which, he was very close to finishing the makeshift bloodline of the Fuma Clan. He had decided to call it Iron Release and all the members that received it, and survived since there was a 20% fatality risk, would form a new clan called the Tetsu Clan. Speaking of the clan, 75% of the members had wanted to form a new clan while the remaining 25% stayed true to their roots.

While they didn't have a bloodline, Orochimaru himself was proof that you did not need one to be strong and he was excited to see what direction the famous clan would take. His research was also doing very well. His new technique that would allow him to achieve a crude form of immortality until he formed a true version of it would take a few more years to complete, and after he finished that he would start working on incomplete techniques that interested him such as the Edo Tensei technique. On top of that, he would only need a few months to complete the Tetsu bloodline to make it genetic and insert it into members who wanted it. Finally, he was planning a trip to get new members in a few years, probably when Akuma was 7. His goal would be to recruit a personal guard for himself that he would train as well as a personal guard for Akuma. He would allow Akuma to come with him and handpick his five subordinates as well.

"What are you thinking about father?" Akuma asked by his side. Yes, he would take his lessons like water to a sponge in the future.

"Just the future Akuma-kun. Have you read up about Konoha yet?"

"Yes, I think we could even go to the branches of the Hyuga Clan for recruits as long as we can find out how to reverse their seal." Orochimaru stopped in his tracks for a moment before continuing to walk with his son. He had thought about that in the past but didn't give it much thought. However, his 'son' had just caused him to revisit the idea. All they needed was an event to cause even more resentment from the branch families and a few Hyugas captured to study the seal and he could have a new clan in his village. So far they only had 2 real clans, the Fuma Clan and the Mamorimasu Clan which specialized in barrier jutsu. They were originally a group from Mist who left during the Third Shinobi World War because they were being sacrificed to allow 'more valuable' shinobi to live in missions or giving them minor missions. Orochimaru had been able to recruit the small clan of 30 people and they accepted more members until the clan reached 80 members.

The clan heads, Hanzaki Fuma and Shirudo Mamorimasu, along with Orochimaru made up the makeshift council of Otogakure. He hoped to one day have as much clans as Konoha but that would be later on. "That is a very good idea Akuma-kun. When you turn 7 would you like to look in Konoha for any possible candidates for your bodyguard squad?" At Akuma's fierce nod he knew that he would probably have to start figuring out how to sneak into Konoha with Akuma. It would be very troublesome to sneak around the Uchiha police, though he knew he could bypass the Byakugan, but he would find a way for his son.

As the two continued to walk down the hall, Orochimaru couldn't help but think that the future looked bright for them.

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

 **Well we did get a lot done in this chapter. You all witnessed many things in the Hidden Sound and met a few new characters that will play a major role later on in the story. Also, Orochimaru is not like he is in the anime. He does not look at his subjects as test subjects or pawns in this story, he is an actual leader but is more like Danzo than Hiruzen. Finally, Akuma is smart because he has spent every waking moment learning since he could understand anything and is not like a kid. He is more like Itachi and is being trained by Orochimaru to be the perfect successor. Now, he is still a bit carefree and likes to play pranks and stuff because that is his personality. Those are the major story points I wanted to go over and if you want to add anything or talk about anything on here then please review. Speaking of which, WOW. I did not expect this much positive support in the form of favorites and follows. I already have more favorites than any story I have ever posted but the reviews are just not as numerous. I would appreciate more reviews but to be honest I'm just glad you guys are enjoying the story and I will be sure to post more content as soon as possible.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, or any other anime/manga for that matter. This is just a parody and all rights belong to their specific owners.**

 **This chapter will mainly go over Akuma's training over the next few years as well as a few other things to keep it semi-interesting.**

 **Also here are some responses to a few reviews that everyone can see. If you want to know what they asked, go look into the reviews real quick, if the story gets popular enough to where there are more than 100 reviews then I'll come back and write them out.**

 **RagingSoul (February 8)- Akuma will not be injected with any bloodlines in this story. This is because he already will be overpowered with his clones learning all sorts of things constantly and the Kyuubi helping him out in the future. Maybe one day I will write a story to where Orochimaru just gives Naruto all sorts of bloodlines before someone finds him, but that won't be until a few months later probably.**

 **BClassDemon (February 7)- Akuma will be using sealing and will one day become a master in the arts. However, this will take way longer than most other skills he will master because of the low amount of clones he can use for this specific skill. Also, I am not sure whether or not Orochimaru should put his soul in the curse mark thing. I mean if I keep it it would be a last resort in case he dies to come back and could play a huge part in the story, but if I ever want to kill him off for emotional development it would go like this. "Oh no! Dad's dead! Well good thing we can always bring him back with good ole curse marks!" You know what I mean? So really, it depends on which I think would be better for the story as a whole, even if it means he doesn't die or something.**

 **And to everyone else who told me to keep up the work and good job, I sincerely thank you! I'm not going to abandon this story no matter how long it takes to write, but updates will take longer to upload soon. The only reason I can write so much right now is because I am recovering from surgery and can't go to school or work. When I recover, instead of having like 12 hours to write I will have about 3-4 hours. I hope you guys can wait on those updates and I hope you enjoy the rest of this story.**

 **1212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212**

Akuma jumped out of his bed in a flash as his alarm clock went off. This was the day. His father would finally begin his real training that wasn't just physical activity. He looked around and smiled as his father had also finally let him decorate his own room. Houses in Oto were mostly stone but there were a few other materials here and there. He himself lived in the Otokage's Mansion which was pure marble with snake carvings all throughout the building. His room was surprisingly small compared to other rooms in the house and all he used to have in it was a bed and a closet for his clothes. Now, he had a poster for the up-and-coming ninja team, the Element Destroyers. They were a three man team that his father supposedly sent on the most important missions for the village. The members were Ken Tetsu, their close combat master, a young genius recruited last year named Guren, and Orochimaru's old assistant, Naifu Fuma.

In addition to the cool poster of those three ninja standing in front of a snake while doing awesome posters he had a few other things. He had a couch, a television that was programed with educational channels, a bookshelf filled to the brim with books about phycology, his latest interest, and other things he found interesting, and a few dumbbells. There were no toys as his father, and by extent Akuma, thought that playing around was a waste of time when he could be learning. Speaking of his father, Akuma actually hadn't seen him as much as he used to. Orochimaru was very busy lately with various new experiments and more new recruits coming into the village. They still did not have enough ninja to combat Konoha's forces of 12,000 shinobi. However, Oto was getting more and more ninja, approaching 2,000 at this point.

Akuma knew that his father was starting to get annoyed with all of these jobs he had to do. Oto now had 4 clans with a new one known as the Taranku Clan being formed by Suika. What he did was adopt the minimum number of people required for a clan, 25. There were plenty of people willing to be recruited with around 400 people joining the village per year now but Suika said he wanted a small clan until they could learn how to control the spiders in a way like the Aburame Clan. Orochimaru actually helped with that project so that now they could communicate telepathically with the spiders. He was now trying to make their DNA able to produce a hard, web-like material that could be used as weapons or armor. One member of the clan that had joined after fleeing to Oto was a very young boy with a biological deficiency, giving him 6 arms instead of two. His name was Kidomaru or something if he heard his father right and he was only a year older than him.

Akuma finished getting dressed in his training gear. His birthday was yesterday and his father told him to report to the training room about an hour after he woke up. His training gear was made up of grey plated armor over a black long sleeved shirt, black pants with bandages wrapped around his right leg's thigh, black sandals with bandages wrapped around his ankles, and a black mask that covered everything below his eyes to his neck. He looked a lot like Orochimaru in his Konoha Sannin days except for the mask.

When he finished getting ready he went out of his door and headed towards the stairs. The building was a two story one and had an amazing 15 rooms. It seemed like there was a room for everything and in reality there was. Akuma's personal favorite room was the library, where books about everything filled each shelf until they reached the roof. It nearly as big as the Otogakure Library, but it served its purpose. He wondered what his training would be. He was thankful that he learned multiple chakra control exercises during his basic training. Thanks to the Kyuubi, who his father told him about as soon as he could understand what it meant, he was able to access his chakra earlier than most children. Ever since then, he has done nothing but chakra control exercises and taijutsu training.

His father even laid out a training plan for him. He would wake up at 5 a.m. then eat special food that gave out the most beneficial nutrients called Oto Bars, then he would start his physical activities for 3 hours, he would then start taijutsu training for 2 more hours, then chakra control for 2 hours, then ninjutsu training for 2 hours, kenjutsu training for another hour, sealing training for another hour, then stealth training for another hour, finally, he would be out researching and studying various subjects interesting to him or suggested by his father. Luckily, Oto Bars kept a person sustained for all day so he didn't have to waste training time with eating and slept at 8 p.m. to get the healthiest amount of sleep, 9 hours.

Most people anywhere else, except for one maniac with a bowl cut, would probably faint at the mere mention of this kind of intense training. This would happen until he was 7 years old, that was when he would choose his personal subordinates and start taking on missions. Personally he thought that was way too long of a wait, but his father wanted to be sure he could take on anyone when he left the village on missions. Akuma dropped by the kitchen and grabbed an Oto Bar before heading towards the training room again. Sure they tasted horrible, but they did their job and Akuma hasn't really had anything else anyway.

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

"Kukuku, I see you are eager to begin your training Akuma-kun," Orochimaru chuckled as Akuma was basically bouncing in place right beside him.

"Yes, father I am. So what are you going to teach me? A fireball? A wind scythe? Maybe a giant earth snake!"

"Kukuku, no Akuma-kun, today I will teach you something much more useful than those petty attack jutsu that so many shinobi, myself included, enjoy using." He put his hands into a cross shaped seal and then smiled. "This jutsu is called the shadow clone jutsu, and with it you will learn 1,000 times as fast…"

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

Guren cursed softly as she read over the reports of the area she and her team were about to destroy. Recently a small group of Iwa missing nin had made camp in the northern part of the Land of Sound but that wasn't what she was cursing about. To back them up, Lord Orochimaru had sent Kabuto and Suika to assist them in the extermination of twenty ninja ranging from chunin to jounin. According to Naifu who had done some espionage at the camp, there were three jounin in all while the rest were chunin. Apparently they were led by the ex-Explosion Corp captain, Baku Hatsu. The other two jounin were no-names, no problem.

If she was completely honest with herself, she couldn't see why Lord Orochimaru sent that infuriatingly arrogant jerk Kabuto. She had only met the kid once and she had to admit he was very skilled… for a 15 year old. She knew he was a jounin now because of his medical talent but she did not see how any of that would help them. They already had a medic and had a plan that would work to defeat all of the enemy in the camp below without the help of another skilled medic and a womanizer with a spider fetish. Ken would make many arrows which Naifu would put explosion notes on and then shoot them at the camp below. Anyone who survived the initial attack would either be picked off by Naifu, skewered by Ken's nagintina, or cut up by Guren's crystal blades.

Speaking of Ken, he was the only male on the team but thankfully did not seem that interested in either of them. He was shirtless to be able to make iron weapons anywhere on his body without ripping his clothes and wore purple plants with gold leg warmers. He was bald and his headband covered his entire head with the sound symbol etched into the front. He was also eyebrow less and was 30 years old with a very stern face and many muscles. She had yet to see anyone who could match him with a nagintina and the only one she had seen beat him in taijutsu was Orochimaru himself. However, he did not use ninjutsu much and only seemed to know a few earth style ones since his bloodline seemed to automatically give that affinity to all of the Tetsu Clan now.

She was actually the ninjutsu user of the team, knowing water style, fire style, and earth style ninjutsu since the crystal style was a combination of all three. She knew about 30 ninjutsu not including crystal style thanks to Orochimaru helping train her and had been learning taijutsu from Ken himself. Naifu was one of the stealthiest people in the village and was the best long range specialist. While this focus on other things made her medical ninjutsu not nearly as good as it could be, she could still heal a serious injury if they needed it. She also was considered a jounin level sealer and though she was nowhere near the sannin Jiraiya she was good enough to make longer range explosive notes.

She was just about to finish the plan when who else but Kabuto should bust into the tent. "Hello, how is the strategy coming along?" he asked in that superior tone of his. Kami, if it wasn't for Orochimaru's command she would have beheaded him.

"It is finished," she said frostily. "Naifu will fire out the explosive arrows towards the camp and Ken will pick off any survivors with the assistance of myself and Suika. You and Naifu will stay at the back in case of the need for medical assistance."

Kabuto frowned at her. "Why aren't you putting me down there with Ken and yourself? Surely, a medic who can defend himself would be a great asset down there."

"Well it's great you can defend yourself, that means that you are perfect for protecting our medic while she is shooting the enemy. We are meeting up on the cliff that overlooks the camp in five minutes, get prepared."

Kabuto forced himself to smile, "As you wish _commander_." With that statement he left to go meet up with Naifu and leave. Guren frowned after he left, this was the first mission where she was in charge and she'd be damned if she let him mess it up.

121212121212112121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121

There were not enough curses in the dictionary to match all of the, admittedly creative, ones Kabuto had come up with for Guren. Why should he be at the back like some lowly medic? He was able to sever peoples' nerves for Christ sake, you'd think that would be good enough to put him at the front lines. He was still a chunin however, so he really couldn't afford to argue with his superior out in the field or he'd never get a promotion.

At least he would be assisting Naifu on the mission, he didn't think his mind could take it if he had to work with another while at the same time not doing anything. Naifu was like an older sister to him and whenever they met, which were very few times since he was a spy and she did not have much reason to visit Konoha, they would hold long conversations about their medical discoveries and things about their respective villages. He also saw a kindred spirit in her as she also had to go through Akuma's Hell Test as the Sound Shinobi call it. Now, he was more like an older brother to Akuma and was actually glad to hear that he had begun his training a week before this mission.

According to Naifu, he had learned the shadow clone jutsu in less than a day, record time, and was learning jutsu, taijutsu, and kenjutsu styles rapidly thanks to his many clones. The only problem was that he couldn't use as many as he usually did, Kabuto had choked on his own spit when he heard he had made 300 on his first try, but could only use 10 so no information was lost when he was studying scrolls. He also couldn't use them to augment his physical abilities but people thought that in a few years he would know at least a hundred jutsu.

To be honest, he hoped that Orochimaru would choose him to train Akuma in a few ninjutsu or chakra control. That was another problem, many jutsu required less chakra than he had so he had to constantly train in chakra control which the clones could not help in either. He knew a few techniques that might help Akuma in the future. Speaking of training, he wondered who would be in charge of his training. Orochimaru was too busy to take care of the complete training but he did plan to save some time each day to teach his son ninjutsu. He was starting to hold auditions as well for Akuma's senseis and the line for that was HUGE when he was last in the village.

Akuma, despite his little tests that would make Ibiki proud, was loved by the entire village. To them he was their prince that Orochimaru would make his successor someday. Those that had met him, and weren't babysitting him, found that they were treated kindly and with respect which was different from most royalty. And that was what Akuma was in Oto, royalty. Parents dreamed of their daughters marrying him and their sons being his right hand man or most trusted advisor. Jounin dreamed of training him while chunin wanted to work with him and genin wanted to work under him. He was just 3 years old and already had all these people trusting him and praising him. He himself had thought that Akuma would be like Itachi, who faced death at the very young age of 4 during the war had become cold and withdrawn to almost everyone. Orochimaru did not want Akuma like that all of the time so he had made the decision to not allow Akuma out of the village until he was 7.

Speaking of which, he was tasked with scouting potential candidates for Akuma's squad in the future in Konoha. At the moment he would be looking into the Hyuga Clan for potential candidates. Orochimaru had cryptically told him not to worry about the curse seal and look at ALL Hyuga members about 4 months ago. He was suspicious that all of the seal users of Otogakure had gathered around that time for a very important experiment but he figured it didn't matter at the moment. Anyway, in Konoha he did not see very many people who would be willing to defect. Orochimaru had made it very clear that he wanted willing people to serve his son and there weren't very many interesting people who would willingly defect.

He shook himself out of his thoughts with a mental bookmark to look into the experiment from earlier when Naifu said that she was ready and everyone gathered up onto the overlooking cliff. He wasn't sure how many people that Naifu could take out with her arrows but he would be here to kill any stragglers. He looked down and immediately saw the leader, Baku Hatsu, with his right hand man next to their little fire. There were tents all around and he looked to Naifu who seemed to be thinking off something. She made some ANBU hand signs that Oto adopted from Konoha that basically said, "I will make some flame seals to ignite the tents as well."

Ken just nodded and made about thirty arrows from thirty pores on his body. He was one of the five people in his clan who could do this, the others were only able to use the pores on their hands and arms. The five that could use the bloodline like Ken were himself, the clan head, his daughter, his wife, and the clan head's daughter. Anyway, Naifu grabbed the arrows and pulled out a chakra blade from a sheath on the small of her back. It was purely ceremonial Kabuto was sure, it didn't seem to be used to fight. It was pure copper with a shuriken guard and jade handle.

He raised an eyebrow as the copper started radiating heat that he could feel from five feet away. He then raised the other one when he realized what she was doing. She was using chakra to heat up the blade and then started carving seals into the arrowheads on the iron arrows. In five minutes she had managed to do what would take most people an hour thanks to the heated blade. She nodded then brought out a scroll which unsealed her prized bow that was crafted by Orochimaru himself. The shaft of the bow was carved wood to look like scales and two snake heads on both end of the shaft. The bowstring was blood red in color and many said that it was because it had absorbed all of the blood of those she had slain.

She fixed the first arrow onto her bow and pulled it back. Slowly, she took aim and pointed it towards the leader of the missing nin. Kabuto looked at the arrow and his eyes widened when he saw it was an explosive arrow. As soon as the arrowhead made contact it would explode in a radius of ten yards. She let the arrow fly and it sunk into the leader's head with a loud 'squelch'. His partner could do nothing but watch and let out a half scream as the explosion killed him and also caught one of the tents, killing two more. Naifu did not stop for a second and grabbed the fire arrows before shooting them towards every tent.

Judging by the screams, a few were caught in the flames, but doing a quick count, Kabuto saw about 10 ninja out in the open. Naifu grabbed three arrows at once, all explosive, and they landed in the middle of clusters of enemies. After the explosion, only one remained with his arm missing. "Mission accomplished," she said in a smug tone before resealing her bow. "Orders commander?"

Guren sighed as she looked down at the remains of the camp. Naifu always got to have all the fun. She had hoped that at least one of the strong ones would have survived but Naifu was quickly becoming legendary for her ability to do things like this before the enemy could react. She might even dare to call her an assassin if she didn't have an explosion fetish. "Alright, Kabuto go down there and stop that man's bleeding. Orochimaru-sama wanted us to bring a prisoner to get information about Iwa. Luckily for us it seems like he was one of the jounin but it WOULD have been better if we would have gotten Baku's right hand man instead," she looked over at Naifu with a tick mark at this part, which Naifu promptly ignored.

Kabuto sighed as he leapt down the overlook and started heading towards the wounded ninja. He would put him unconscious before stopping the bleeding, the last thing he wanted was some shinobi with his pride wounded complaining the whole trip back to Oto. As he was healing the man, he couldn't help but think that he wished that he could have fought too.

121212121212121221212121212121212121212121212122121212121212121212

Jiraiya cursed as he came across the dead body of ANOTHER of his spies in the Land of Hot Water. He was currently in one of the big cities of the country, Ashizomaki. He had heard of a new ninja village being founded that accepted missing-nin of all things in their ranks. This was nothing new, but they accepted missing-nin from everywhere with no repercussions for their actions. According to his sources, a lot of missions were being taken from the eastern part of the Land of Hot Water and the Land of Rice Patties. He had only sent his spies here however after he heard that a shinobi went to each big city to gather requests from them and the surrounding area around it, including multiple small villages.

This made him lean more towards the Land of Rice Patties, but no-one knew where the village was! All they knew was that to get into the village you had to go to the capital and sign up. It was a long process where they wash you down to get rid of any disguises, have a chakra sensor see if you had a henge, and then put you up to a lie detector to and ask some questions. The people in charge of it also had a seal suspiciously like Danzo's Root shinobi had so they could not be interrogated. He would also have to wait a few years until even HE was allowed into the village because they were still starting out and were not yet willing to have a sannin in the village.

That in of itself was suspicious since they were the first village ever to not allow him to visit. Oh well, he would get in one day but now he needed to tell his spies to be a bit more careful. It seemed like this new village did not appreciate spies watching them at all. He wouldn't give up though, he had already failed him once and he'd be damned if he did it again. "Hold on Naruto… I'll find you soon and then be the godfather I should have been at the beginning," he whispered out into the air. He did not notice the white snake watching him from the shadows of a nearby alleyway or how it disappeared in a poof of smoke after he left.

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

 **Well how did you guys like the chapter? By the way, the story will still be a bit slow like usual but will finally start up again when Akuma gets his team/subordinates/guard. I won't tell you guys who they will be but there will be four people on his team and one additional person that will make his/her own team. There will be one person from Oto, two from Konoha, one from Suna, and one person from Kumo. You can guess who those people are as you please. Also, next chapter will basically be father-son time between Akuma and Orochimaru so you guys know how their relationship is. Please remember to rate and review and thank you to all those who already have! It has made me know that I am doing most things in this right and it makes me extremely happy to know people are enjoying what I write. I'll (hopefully) see you guys in the next chapter, later!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, or any other anime/manga for that matter. This is just a parody and all rights belong to their specific owners.**

 **Now here are some more review responses**

 **Antex- The Legendary Zoroark (February 11)- your OC will be revealed in a few chapters once the actual story begins (it has taken a while I know, but I think it will be worth it) everyone, if you have an idea for an OC you want to see on this story please send the idea to me. I will be happy to find a place for them. Now, that doesn't mean they will automatically play a major role, they might die before the chapter ends, but they will still be shown in the story.**

 **BClassDemon (February 11)- the reason Orochimaru has yet to recruit any Uchiha is because he has not finished his immortality jutsu. He finally finished the one seen in the series in this chapter and is beginning to try and kidnap/recruit Uchiha to possess since he would rather possess them then make a clan out of them.**

 **Anarion87 (February 11)- thank you! I will try to make all of the other chapters just as good as the previous ones. If you have any ideas on things I should improve please message me.**

 **1212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212**

Akuma panted as he went through another of his katas. It has been two years since his training had begun and he could confidently say that he could take on most chunin. He was a jounin level ninjutsu level however, but that was because of his shadow clones. At first he and his father thought that his shadow clones could help him in taijutsu and kenjutsu as well but he was in for a rude awakening a week later. While they could learn forms and techniques effortlessly, since their bodies' memories did not transfer he did get any muscle memory or reflexes from the training.

However, over the last two years he had been training to increase his mobility, flexibility, and reflexes to get ready for a taijutsu style that his father would teach him personally. Until then however, he would train in the style that Ken-sensei had taught him, Aikido. This fighting style relied on counter-attacking his opponents with throws and strikes that he would enforce with chakra to break bones. He was thinking of incorporating daggers with the style, but that would wait until he became better with them.

Speaking of weapons, Ken was very impressed with Akuma's progress as of late. He was chunin level in both the katana and sai while genin level with daggers. Given another few years, Ken was sure Akuma would be jounin level in all three weapons. Also, Akuma had learned a lot about Ken in the past year that he had been his teacher.

Ken was the youngest son of the previous leader of the Fuma Clan with his oldest brother being the head of the Fuma Clan and the other being head of the Tetsu Clan. However, Ken was widely thought of as the strongest in either clans and one who was incredibly loyal to his family so he was never thought of as a threat for the position of clan head. He came from a large family with 3 brothers and 1 sister he had to work hard to be noticed by his father who was always too preoccupied teaching his older brother how to be clan head to worry about his other children. He was considered by all of them the one who took their mother since she had died while giving birth to him and was bullied until he could fight them back.

Despite all of this bullying, he eventually proved himself to all of them when an elder of the clan noticed his talent for the clan's taijutsu and kenjutsu styles. He quickly mastered both of them by the age of 10 and was considered the genius of the Fuma Clan. He made chunin at 11 and jounin at 16 while teaching his siblings how to fight himself. Eventually, his father noticed him and the bullying from his brothers and sister finally stopped and he was respected throughout the clan. However, tragedy struck when the Third Great Shinobi War began. His family was hired by Iwagakure to aid them in the war and they fought Konoha on many occasions.

His family was very helpful to Iwa, and this caused Konoha to kill any Fuma Clan member that they came across. Their unique green hair caused them to be easily targeted and was the reason Ken shaved his head. His brother, the future clan head, was the first Fuma to die in the world. He had been leading a small group of ninja and the next thing he knew, his head was blown off by a lightning style jutsu by none other than the White Fang of Konoha. Luckily, no more of Ken's siblings died until near the end of the war. Many more Fuma died to enemy shinobi and with each death Ken grew angrier and angrier. Eventually, his anger and eagerness to kill Konoha shinobi resulted in his sister's death by a lucky kunai throw by a genin named Asuma Sarutobi. He had broken that kid's ribs and arms and was about to cave the brat's skull in when his sensei had intervened. He had carved out that idiotic jounin with his nagintina but by the time he was done, the brat had escaped.

That was the day Ken had forsaken anger as best as he could. He was emotionless and logical most of the time and being the reason his sister died had left him in a deep depression that made the light leave his once bright hazel eyes. He reminded Akuma of steel, cold, uncaring, and deadly. That was probably one of the reasons of the man's nickname, Black Steel. "Enough thinking Akuma. There will be no time to think on the battlefield," as Ken said this he threw a few kunai that Akuma was forced to deflect. Whenever he got lost in thought he would get kunai launched at him. He was forced to choose between deflecting or dodging depending on the weapon or situation and getting it wrong would result in a particularly painful taijutsu match.

"Now, now, surely you can cut the boy some slack Ken-kun," a chuckling voice said from the doorway.

Ken grew a tick mark above his, well Akuma was going to say eyebrow butttt, which was a rare occurrence. "I really wish you wouldn't call me that Otokage-sama," Ken said in a voice that signaled he was annoyed, not that anyone who didn't know him could tell.

Orochimaru smirked and shrugged nonchalantly. "Fine, so how is Akuma-kun's training going Ken-chan?"

Ken put his face in his palms and breathed in and out slowly. Orochimaru loved to make Ken angry, it was just so fun to rile the war veteran up. "He is quickly mastering the weapons which I have decided to train him in. I have taught him the Soresu kenjutsu style and he is very proficient with sai as well. Daggers are still a work in progress but he should become chunin level with them soon. Also, he is high chunin in the Aikido taijutsu style and should become jounin level soon."

Orochimaru smiled at his son's progress. He would be his successor and he will enjoy hearing about him in the future from faraway lands. Of course it would also be nice to have someone at his level helping with experiments… He finally found a way to gain temporary immortality but he would need a body to possess before he tested out his new method. He would send Kabuto a message to record Uchiha going out on missions so that he could get a few to possess. As Orochimaru looked at Akuma he remembered something else. Project Falcon was going to happen soon… Oh how he could not wait for that, people would be talking about the event for centuries all because of little Akuma-kun there.

"Well, that is good to hear. You are such a good teacher in fact that I think it would be wise to give you a genin team in the future."

Ken's head snapped to Orochimaru after he had looked off momentarily. Not many people knew this, but Ken had always wanted to be a sensei ever since he had first started to help his siblings learn how to fight. "I- thank you Otokage-sama," Ken said while bowing low.

Orochimaru simply chuckled at the man and signaled for him to leave. He nodded and left the training room with a small grin on his face. The man was as strong as the Copy Ninja Kakashi, it would be good to have a few ninja be taught by someone like him. "Alright, Akuma-kun, you remember what today is right?" Orochimaru asked.

Akuma nodded excitedly, "It is the Oto Festival right?" The Oto Festival was a festival Orochimaru himself had made to increase moral and economy for the village. It was to celebrate the founding of Otogakure and was one of the few days that anyone was allowed into the village. Of course sensors and their version of Anbu, the Serpents, would be watching the visitors at all times but it was a chance for new clients to see their village. They would also hold multiple events like a play that included well known missions like the time Black Steel destroyed a bandit occupied samurai base singlehandedly or the time Orochimaru and his teammates fought Hanzo. With Orochimaru's exact memory of the event of course… And a tournament between 4 of Oto's best shinobi whose abilities were already in the bingo book so they could use the ones said. The participants were Ken Tetsu, Guren, Naifu Fuma, and Suika Taranku.

"Yes, now you need to get ready before we leave. We wouldn't want the Sound Prince to look like a bum."

"Father," Akuma whined. "You know I don't like that name, it makes me sounds lame. I want one like Black Steel or Green Beast."

"Well you'll have to earn a new name son. Don't worry, I am sure you will in due time," Orochimaru said with a smile that would make most run in fear, but was comforting to Akuma. He rubbed his son's hair and sent him off to his room to get ready for the tournament. He smiled and ran off to his room, he was extremely excited to see his taijutsu sensei fight his sealing sensei and hear another story about his father's ninja days. Orochimaru looked at where he left then looked down at his hand with a frown. His dye was wearing off and he was too old to think it was natural now, it seemed like he would have to tell him of his true parentage soon. Hopefully it would not cause him to defect from the village… Orochimaru cursed in his head, thinking of Akuma as a son had been an unexpected factor in his plan. No… Akuma wouldn't defect. He was more of a father to him than Minato was. That blonde bastard left the child alone in a village filled with hatred and malice. He didn't know why, but he hated him for that more than for taking his hokage position.

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

Akuma looked around excitedly as he and his father walked through the streets. He was dressed in a purple kimono with golden snakes running across it as well as the Oto village symbol on his back. His hair was slicked back instead of spiked up like usual and he had a necklace given by the Land of Sound's Feudal Lord that was solid silver in the shape of a dragon.

His father was dressed in his Otokage garbs that looked exactly like the Hokage's but instead of red coloring there was purple. All around them civilians and shinobi bowed before going back to business and his father seemed to find it especially amusing when shinobi from Konoha bowed to him. He had already learned from his father the reasons he defected and why he experimented on those 'innocent' people. He did not blame him if he was honest. To make his home stronger, he would do anything as well. He just had to marvel at the stupidity of Konoha. They chose a blond war hero who was charismatic but golden hearted instead of a much more competent shinobi. When he ruled Oto, and he WOULD rule Oto, he would make sure nothing like that happened in his village.

"What's that father?" Akuma asked as he pointed to a stand that was selling some foreign food.

"Oh, that is an Akimichi food stand. They have restaurants in every village and will probably be asking for permission to make a restaurant here as well."

"But why? Don't Konoha shinobi hate you?"

Orochimaru smirked at his son's question. He was certainly a genius from all the books he and his shadow clones have read, but he still had a lot to learn about tactics. He also would have to hide his Icha Icha books harder from Akuma, it was a dirty little secret that every male shinobi owned one of the books from a series. While he was an idiot, he had to admit Jiraiya certainly had a gift with books. He would have to see if he would consider selling the franchise in Oto as well…

He looked to his son to see him still waiting for an answer. That was the problem with people, they always talked and expected you to talk as well. But soon Akuma would be so much more than human… he would be a shinobi. "Well, if they made a shop here then they would have a prime opportunity to 'spy' on our activities. Not only that but it would make them, and by extension, Konoha more money. I'm sure it is somewhat amusing to them to constantly receive money from their 'enemies'." Akuma nodded at this information and filed it away to ponder about later.

Meanwhile, Orochimaru thought about certain plans that were about to unfold. His village was doing decent economically but it needed much more franchises from other countries to come in. Businesses like the Gato Company and Akimichi Cafes were needed to keep the economy steady. While missions were still the main focus of economy, Orochimaru did not want to turn into what Suna is turning into, a village that depends on nothing but missions. Plus, opening up his village to foreigners would make it like all of the other villages and the spies that no doubt would come in would be great for experimentation…

"Hey, father what is that?" Akuma asked politely, ah he really did teach his son well didn't he? Orochimaru looked over towards where he was pointing and saw a ramen stand that little Minato and Kushina had always eaten at. They must have wanted to get more business or start a franchise. Oh well, Akuma probably wouldn't like ramen anyway. What harm would there be in letting him have some?

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

Now, many things could be said about Orochimaru. Some said he was evil, some said he was a genius, some said he was the leader of Oto that would make it rise to greatness. But no-one had ever said that Orochimaru was a crier. Be that as it may, the great snake sannin really felt like crying as he and his son left the ramen stand. For a second there he thought he might have had to tap into the village treasury just to be able to afford feeding his son. After that, he had looked at him with that damn Puppy Eyed Jutsu that he was going to kill Kabuto for teaching to him and asked if they could allow the stand to make a franchise there.

Needless to say, in a month or two Ichiraku's Ramen would have a new stand right there in the middle of Oto. Apparently the man's daughter would be the one in charge of it while Teuchi, if he remembered his name right, would run the one in Konoha with the aid of a civilian named Nudoru Haruno from the Haruno civilian clan. While he was at it, he also gave the Akimichi Café owners permission to open up a franchise in Oto. He also said that any Akimichi that wanted to move to Oto could as well but he wasn't very hopeful in that event happening.

The mighty leader of Oto looked down into his empty wallet and prayed that when the new Ichiraku's opened up that they would give a kage discount. "So, I am guessing you liked the ramen Akuma-kun?" Orochimaru asked with a small laugh as Akuma patted his stomach.

"That had to be the best food I ever tasted father. Even Hakura-san didn't have food that go-oomph!" Akuma was cut off as Orochimaru rapidly covered his mouth and looked around for Hakura. He breathed a sigh of relief as a dark shape with fire in her eyes and a pan in her hand backed into the alley of which she came from. Hakura was the owner of Hakura's Diner, the best restaurant in all of Oto, and to insult her cooking was like calling an Akimichi fat. He still had a bruise from when she had snuck up on him one day for calling her food 'mediocre'.

"Now Akuma, what have I told you about saying stuff about that woman's food?" Orochimaru said, getting completely serious.

"That if I did it then a demon stronger than all the sannin combined would come get me?" Orochimaru started to sweat as he felt eyes boring into the back of his head at his answer. He was not scared of anyone, especially not a 50 year old woman who had a good swing with a frying pan.

"No, the other thing."

"Oh, that Hakura-san is the best cook in all of the world and that we should never insult her cooking since insulting her cooking is just lying to ourselves?"

"There you go," Orochimaru said in relief as he led his son away from the demon woman. Whenever someone tried to destroy his village, he wouldn't even bother telling his ninja to defend it, he would just tell that woman the enemy insulted her cooking.

Orochimaru and Akuma walked through the village and stopped at many more stands and attractions. There were fishermen selling fish caught by workers in the Gato Corporations, blacksmiths from the Land of Iron showing off their handiwork, authors from the Land of Rivers trying to sell some of their new books, and many more. Eventually, Orochimaru had decided to allow many of them to set up businesses in Oto. While the ninja force was doing fantastic, the civilian residents did not have much to see or do in Oto. Sure they could always go to the marketplace but there was no bookstore, no clothing store, not many restaurants besides Hakura's, and just not much to do in general. The more businesses he allowed into Oto, the more jobs the civilians would get, this meant more D-rank jobs since everyone would be busy with the jobs they just got to do it themselves. Maybe he should ask the feudal lord if his wife had a cat…

He wouldn't allow more than three Konoha businesses in his village however. He wasn't stupid and he knew that if he let all the ones who applied in, it would be hard to catch Konoha spies that entered the village under the pretext of leading the new businesses. However, he was glad that he would get some franchises into his village. Maybe in the future, Oto will turn out like Konoha only twice as good. Looking down at Akuma, Orochimaru had no doubt that it was a possibility.

121212122121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121

Jiraiya smiled as he walked through the streets of Otogakure. He knew who led the village and all the experiments that went on in the labs but he still enjoyed seeing all of the happy people. He also had to applaud Orochimaru's cleverness in the law that he made as soon as the village was founded. There were no prisons here because of his law, only the labs. If you broke any of the laws you were experimented on and that was that. It was one of the reasons there was so little crime in the city, even if you survived the experimentation, you would never be the same again.

From what he's heard, they experimented on people to test out certain artificial bloodlines before applying them. So far they had made unique bloodlines for both the Tetsu and Taranku clans with many other ninja running around with experimental bloodlines just waiting to be tested. He heard of a boy that could move his bones around to keep them from breaking and another who could absorb chakra, but since the two did not want to start a clan and Orochimaru still felt like the tests were not finished it was not a clan bloodline around here. Of course there were a dozen other artificial bloodlines that Orochimaru apparently made, but they either weren't valuable enough to distribute through a clan or just weren't genetic.

He'd be impressed with how his old teammate managed to create a new bloodline from scratch if he wasn't so utterly disgusted. As it was, he was just visiting Oto for the festival and to gather information about the town. He recognized some of the seals around the cavern as Uzumaki seals but other than that couldn't find out much. It turned out that all Oto shinobi had a seal like Danzo's Root shinobi put on them. This made it near impossible to interrogate them, but he could still find out some information about Oto life.

Apparently there was a boy that was being groomed to be Oto's second Otokage in the future named Akuma. He could not get a description of the boy but he was willing to bet it was Naruto. He would abduct him if he wasn't put under constant guard to prevent plans like his. He could easily defeat his guards but he knew they had some other method in place that would probably result in him fighting Orochimaru himself. He would bide his time until little Naruto went off on a mission, then he would bring him back home.

Jiraiya looked down at the pamphlet he got at the gates for the tournament most shinobi came to see. The first round would be Ken Tetsu vs Guren and Suika Taranku vs Naifu Fuma. Maybe he would find some interesting information before the tournament ended. He looked below the information about the tournament and got a shit-eating grin at what he saw. Right below it was a coupon for Oto's brand new community hot springs and Jiraiya was happy to offer his 'professional' opinion on them. With a whistle and a skip in his step he headed right towards the promised steamy goodness. Little did he know, Orochimaru was patting himself on the back for the best distraction in the world.

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

 **Next chapter will be the first real fight in the entire story as well as soon good old teammate tension between Jiraiya and Orochimaru. Also, Project Falcon will be underway next chapter. Can any of you guess what it is? Anyway, please rate and review, it really helps me know how you all like my writing and is greatly appreciated. See you all (hopefully) next chapter!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, or any other anime/manga for that matter. This is just a parody and all rights belong to their specific owners.**

 **Warning: this is the first back to back chapter with no large amount of time skipped between chapters. More chapters will be like this in the future.**

 **Review Replies:**

 **Nwandu225 (February 14)- Thank you! And yea, Orochimaru will not be a cliché here. Just think of him like a Hokage but willing to do much darker things for the good of his village as long as he does not directly harm it. Like Danzo but not doing stupid things that will only harm the village (seriously though, why would you make your strongest clan your enemy instead of your ally? How does that make the village stronger?) Also, yea writing Orochimaru and Akuma scenes are one of my favorite things to do.**

 **Antex- The Legendary Zoroark (February 14)- thanks! Your OC will come in eventually just give him time. I need to finish up with Project Falcon and the tournament and then Orochimaru will show Akuma the dark side of Otogakure. And as for Akuma's true heritage… well we will just have to see won't we?**

 **My 2 guys (February 15)- thank you for your support and the chapters will continue coming in. I have given myself a 1 week deadline to post new chapters but if I don't in that time that does not mean that I have given up on the story, just that I might have other things I need to do or I have writers block (which is what I have on my DBZ story).**

 **1212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212**

The Sound Daimyo walked through the crowds of people in Oto with a grace befitting his royal lineage along with his personal guard. Oto had 'graciously' given the man 12 jounin level bodyguards to guard him or keep him in line. He was the youngest daimyo in the entire elemental countries at 15 years old after his father was killed by these ninja for stepping out of line. He had little doubt that they took him to this tournament to show him just how strong a few of their ninja were.

He didn't care if they were strong or weak if he was honest. His country had been doing better under his rule than it had in years and his father was an asshole anyway. His mother had left the country when he told her his opinions, despite the fact that the bastard abused the young lord constantly she never stopped loving him. "Kenshi-sama, we are at the stadium," the leader of his personal guard told him. He sighed in exasperation but did not dare say his thoughts aloud. He could obviously see the giant stone colosseum that looked exactly like the ancient Roman ones everyone learned about in school.

He walked through the main gates while his head guard exchanged hand signals with the gate guard to make sure no-one was an imposter. He went inside of the colosseum and towards the important guest area. It was a secured area with stone walls surrounding every side except for the front, where the fights were taking place. As he entered the area, he saw some faces he easily recognized. The most important of these were Gato from Gato Shipping, Jiraiya of the Sannin, and the Hot Water Daimyo.

After a brief moment of indecision Kenshi walked over to the Hot Water Daimyo and sat down. "Hello, Michael-san. What are you doing here?" Kenshi asked good naturedly as he sat down. Michael was about 30 years Kenshi's senior so he deserved the proper respect when being talked to.

Michael sighed and lit up a cigarette before taking along drag. The man had been a close friend of Kenshi's father, and his death had added many years to the man but he was still thought to have one of the best minds for politics. "I am deforming my country's ninja village," he confessed after a minute of silence. He held up his hand to halt any questions from his junior daimyo. "I know what you want to say, I am aware of the repercussions of deforming a ninja village. It really isn't even a village anymore, besides one promising genin who just so happens to worship the damn devil there are barely any talented ninja. The village is filled with 500 chunin and about 50x as many civilians so there is no point in even keeping a village anymore."

"But, aren't you worried of your country being taken over by Konoha or Kirigakure?" Kenshi asked worriedly.

To the teenager's dismay, Michael just shrugged. "I don't really care about the land anymore. My wife is dead from cancer, my children killed in a fire, my best friend killed in a bandit raid. I have no-one else and can't really care about anything anymore. However, I am still the leader of my country and I have made a decision." He looked at Kenshi and smirked slightly, the only thing besides a frown he had done. "Instead, if I am impressed by the strength of this village, I am willing to give you control of all my lands while giving the Otokage permission to make a ninja outpost in the country."

Kenshi's eyes were so wide he thought that his eyelids would fly off at any moment. This would be the biggest diplomatic deal in the history of the elemental countries. "And what happens if you aren't impressed?" Kenshi asked warily.

Michael smirked again at the boy, "Well, then I will probably either turn all my land over to Snow Country, Fire Country, or just keep it all and become a vacation resort for all of the other countries. Let's hope your ninja impress me, I can't stand any of those other daimyos."

Kenshi nodded dumbly and signaled one of his guards to tell the Otokage about this new development. If they got this land, then their territory would increase to the same size as the Land of Iron. Kenshi smiled as he thought up schemes and ideas in his head. Maybe it was time to recruit a samurai force of their own to combat the Land of Iron's. It would take years but if they played their cards right they could become big enough to be a major country. Sure, it would take a ton of bloodshed and risk, but Kenshi was extremely ambitious, which was why Orochimaru let him live in the first place. He had to stifle a chuckle as he looked down into the arena floor as the first competitors came out. All of his plans were riding on these four shinobi, they'd better now mess up…

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

Jiraiya leaned forwards as two of the four competitors left the floor so the other two could fight. He had seen the bingo book entries and knew that these two shinobi were approaching S-class level. Even if he didn't get any information, this would be an interesting fight…

121212121221212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121

Gato chuckled as he saw the two ninja in the field. The bald man looked strong but the purple haired girl looked weak and frail. If she was one of Oto's best he probably wouldn't be doing much business with them after all. Oh well, perhaps he could gain blackmail material to use on this 'super strong' ninja Orochimaru. He signaled to his mercenaries to be on lookout while he recorded the battle with a camera he smuggled into the arena. He was sure someone would pay big money for the man's techniques and fighting style. Before he could even start the recording his camera was destroyed with a kunai and he was left with a destroyed camera in his hands. Damn ninja… they always meddled with everything.

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

Orochimaru and Akuma were both seated at the front of the stands on an entirely separate section reserved just for kages and future kages. As Orochimaru looked down at his ninja he smirked. He could practically feel his son's excitement and, not wanting to keep the boy waiting, he signaled for the fights to start.

121212121212121212121212121212121212121121212121121212121212121212

Ken frowned as he looked over his opponent for the first battle of the tournament. He knew better than to underestimate the woman, he had helped train her after all, and was trying to find a way to win without harming her too bad. He shook that thought out of his head immediately. If she ever found out he went easy on her then there would be hell to pay. He sighed as he remembered the one time she had told her wife some completely untrue information and he was forced to sleep on the couch for a month.

As soon as Orochimaru signaled the fight to start, the two sound shinobi leapt back to opposite ends of the arena and prepared their techniques. "Iron Style: Black Steel," Ken said as he formed a few hand seals for the S-rank technique he received his name from. Many spectators' eyes widened in amazement as iron started to seep out of every pore on Ken's shirtless body and form an extra layer of skin around his entire body. However, this technique was S-rank because it did not impede movement at all and the dark metal was several times stronger than steel because it continually compressed until any more would result in loss of movement.

Guren just smiled at the middle aged man and started some hand seals of her own. She was unable to finish as Ken body flickered to her with his fist raised back. Seeing no other option, she burrowed underground and reappeared several yards away from her old teacher. She tried the hand seals again and frowned as she realized it might not even work. "Crystal Style: Crystal Lance!" she yelled out as she stuck her arm out to the right. A large lance made of a purple crystal formed on her arm and she immediately charged at the man.

He made the iron covering his hand shift into a saw blade and ducked under the lance. He slashed towards the lance and his blade embedded itself inside the crystal by an inch. He used his other hand to his Guren in the face, but was surprised when it was stopped by a hand covered with crystal. "Crystal Armor," she said smugly before using her lance to throw Ken away from her.

He flipped around right before hitting the ground and stared impassively at Guren. She could imagine him frowning, but she couldn't see his face behind all of that iron so she couldn't tell. She cancelled her lance jutsu since it was obvious it wasn't going to work, and Ken wouldn't fall for the same trick twice. Guren jumped into the air to try out a new technique she was working on. "Crystal Style: Shuriken Wild Dance!" she yelled before throwing her hands out straight on either side of her body. Crystal particles surrounded the woman before condensing into shuriken and heading towards Ken at high speeds.

He just stood still and allowed the crystals to hit him head on. Guren landed softly and waited for the dust to clear that came up when the shuriken landed. When it finally did clear, she saw Ken standing there with his armor receded back into pores and a hand seal she recognized as one of his strongest techniques. "Iron Style: Iron Dragon Jutsu!" he yelled out with a smirk as a dragon formed from the pores on his back. Guren took a step back as a dragon made entirely out of hard iron and with yellow eyes looked down at her. With a roar, the dragon charged at her and she scowled.

"Crystal Style: Crystal Encampment Wall!" she thrust her hands forward and from them a giant wall of red crystal blocked the path of the dragon to her. This did almost nothing as the dragon smashed throw 3 quarters of the wall before even slowing down. It continued to slowly destroy the wall, but it made a huge mistake. With a single hand seal from Guren, the wall started to repair itself with the dragon still inside of it, and eventually trapped the beast inside. With another two seals, the wall split into countless crystal pieces with the dragon being destroyed as well. It wasn't over yet however…

"This is it Ken! Crystal Style: Giant Hexagonal Shuriken!" she finished forming the necessary hand seals and the pieces of crystals combined to form many giant crystal shuriken that launched at Ken.

Ken watched wide eyed as he did a few rapid seals that Jiraiya was sure only Kakashi could see. "Earth Style: Mud Wall," he said with a bit of desperation in his voice. Right before the shuriken tore through the wall he did ten more hand seals and put his hands on the wall. "Iron Style: Iron Reinforcement!" he yelled out from strain as an iron coating covered the entire wall on both sides. He dropped to a knee as the attack embedded all the shuriken through the wall and Ken looked to see one only halfway still in the wall.

Ken cursed slightly as he realized he wouldn't be able to use many more iron style jutsu. He needed chakra to replenish his iron supply and he had used up most of it. "On the bright side," he thought seriously. "It seems little Guren is almost out as well…" He was right as Guren was leaning on her knees while looking at the giant iron wall that was in the middle of the field. She cancelled her crystal jutsu and the giant shuriken dissipated into nothingness, making the wall no longer have enough support with all the holes and fall down.

She didn't have any time to let Ken recover so she used the last of her chakra to body flicker behind him and hold a kunai to his neck. "It's over. I win," she said with confidence.

"Did you really?" 'Ken' asked as he turned into mud and Guren felt a kunai on her throat this time. Seeing as she was out of chakra and felt like she was going to pass out at any time she sighed and raised her hand.

"I surrender," she said sullenly. There was complete silence in the colosseum until the first person clapped. Soon there was cheering and clapping from every part of the arena. Ken had the audacity to back up and bow before stumbling back to the combatants area while the medics came to replenish both of their chakra. She followed after Ken and fell in step beside him. "So, Ken, when did you develop that wall technique?" Guren asked feeling a bit ashamed about underestimating the man just because he had not been on a mission with her in a while. She had realized when he made that 20 yard tall and 15 yard wide wall that he was anything but soft.

He just shrugged with a small smile on his face, something she had only seen once. "Akuma and I like to spar every now and then. I can easily defeat him in anything but ninjutsu. Don't get me wrong, mine are still stronger than his but he helped me realize that I needed a defense against powerful and wide spread attacks after he used his Dragon Flame Bullet Barrage on me. It takes about a quarter of my chakra to use it though, so I need to work on it some more."

Guren was left wide eyes at his explanation. He decided he needed a better defense jutsu because of some kid?! Sure he was Orochimaru-sama's kid but he was still a kid. She also noticed some pride in Ken's voice and sighed. It was a shame, it looked like he was not going to return to their squad after all. She still hoped she could convince Orochimaru to get Suika off her team though. That ass was a major pain…

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

"Heh heh, you ready to get started sweet cheeks?" Suika asked the beautiful woman next to him. Naifu Fuma did not say a word to betray her intentions and swiftly pushed Suika off to the arena floor.

"Aw, how come you get to be the one to do that?" Guren pouted when she came up the stairs.

"Because you reveal your intentions too soon. As annoying as he is, he is still an A-rank ninja, despite his age, and can easily see what you want to do before you do it." She could see Guren was about to say something about being an A-rank too and decided to start the match before an argument could ensue. She did not like talking, talking got ninja like her father killed. Talking revealed information to the enemy that led them to your village. Talking made your once kind cousin emotionless and led him away from the clan. Naifu shook her head as she thought these things. Shinobi did not dwell on past thoughts, they acted based on the information available to them. She would show them all this when she defeated Suika.

Guren just sighed as she sat down in one of the front row seats next to Ken who took a soldier pill. Naifu had been steadily getting worse and worse over the course of their time together. Now she barely did anything without exact information and was extremely cold. She once saw her not heal a person who was crushed by a building because 'he would have died anyway. It would just be a waste of chakra'. Guren frowned for a moment before making up her mind. After the tournament she would go to Orochimaru directly and hope he took her off of active duty. Even if he defected, she knew he kept some ideas from Konoha, especially their ideas of teamwork. He believed in it so much that the academy had a phrase put up above the stone entrance to the academy. It said 'those that break the rules and regulations are scum. But those who abandon their comrades are less than scum- Kakashi Hatake, the Copy Ninja.' She did not understand the quote if she was honest, it really depended on the mission in her opinion. Oh well, she did not need to understand it, all she had to do is convince her kage to help her comrade.

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

"That was mean Naifu-chan," Suika whined while he stood up from his prone position on the floor.

"To shinobi, mean is not in our vocabulary," she said softly while dropping into a Jiu-jitsu fighting stance. Suika stood at 5'11 while Naifu was 5'7 so she wanted to use this style to negate the size advantage. The two also looked very different from the mission with each other and Kabuto those few years ago. Suika was much more muscular thanks to 'standard' introductory training with Ken and now wore his hair in a small ponytail. He wore a white shirt with a purple obi and black pants. His Oto forehead protector shined as he dropped into his patented Spider Style. This relied on swift movements and speedy strikes similar to Orochimaru's fighting style but incorporated with his clan's web jutsus and new 'sticky gold' techniques.

Naifu also looked a bit different. She wore a navy blue shirt with fishnet underneath and had her green hair cut to be very short. She wore black cargo pants with boots that were iron studded. She had two tantos slung over her back with a large scroll fixated on the small of her back. Suika was about to say something smartassed but had to rapidly dodge as Orochimaru gave the signal to start and a barrage of shuriken headed towards him. He rolled away to dodge them but body flickered away when Naifu used chakra strings to send the shuriken his way again.

He did not get much time to think as another barrage of shuriken headed towards him as soon as he flickered away. As he leapt to the left he was forced to use a substitution with a nearby rock from Ken's wall from earlier. "Ha, is that all you can do, throw shuriken?" he was forced to dodge again from ANOTHER barrage completely controlled by chakra strings. Or that was what he thought until he saw all the shuriken but 3 disappear after hitting the ground. "Wow, so you made shuriken bunshin to trick me into wasting my chakra by dodging. Smart." This time he pulled out a kunai when she sent her next barrage but was surprised when the other shuriken were real too.

The shuriken hit his heart and with a gaping mouth he fell to the ground… right where he turned into water. Suika reappeared on the top of the nearby pond that was made for water style users. Naifu noticed too late that her opponent was forming seals before he made the final one and smirked at her. "Water Style: Wild Water Wave!" he yelled as he put the seal in front of his mouth and a strong stream of water shot towards Naifu. She ducked under it, but that was exactly what Suika wanted as he made a water clone who used the same jutsu from below. She couldn't dodge this one and got hit by it and shot towards the other end of the arena.

It was not over yet however as Suika formed some more seals and touched the wet ground leading to her. "Lightning Style: Thunderbolt," he said in sorrow for a fight ending so soon. The electricity shot towards Naifu and hit her body where it turned into mud. Suika rapidly dispelled his own clones and turned around, forming hand seals. "Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!" while it was not as big as the famous Great Fireball Jutsu, it still formed a decent sized fireball that shot towards the approaching Naifu.

She did not break stride and pulled out a seal from one of her many pockets. She threw it at the flames and the fire seemed to be absorbed into the seal. Jiraiya smirked up in the stands as he recognized it as a Fire Containment Seal that he used often. Naifu did not stop there and pulled out both of her tantos and stabbed both of them into Suika's gut. Or she would have, if a strange golden liquid had not come out of his stomach and solidified before the weapons struck.

Her tantos simply broke as they flew off the hard surface and she was caught in a web that Suika shot at her from his mouth. "Heh, you lose," he said with a smirk while forming hand seals. He put his palms onto the ground and said with a grin, "Earth Style: Earth Prison Jutsu." A large dome appeared over Naifu and closed off with a loud boom. She would suffocate until she passed out which Suika could feel. At least that was the plan…

Instead, Naifu grabbed Suika's feet and brought him below the ground. "Earth Style: Inner Decapitation Jutsu," she said softly as she appeared out of the ground a foot in front of Suika. Before Suika could counter she threw a seal that completely sealed off the victim's chakra onto his forehead. He was left gaping up at the woman as he passed out from chakra exhaustion.

Many people were shocked that she had won, but some people like Guren and Orochimaru easily saw why he lost. Suika had been overconfident and did not use his best techniques, instead using his mediocre ones while Naifu tired him out and made him think that was all she could do. She always had a good supply of seals for every situation and used them expertly to put down her opponent. Suika could probably defeat her eventually in a full on fight but, because of his actions, he was defeated by the smarter person.

As everyone clapped, Naifu simply body flickered back to the stands. She had only needed about 15% of her chakra because of Suika's stupidity. After using her chakra scalpels to cut through the webbing that trapped her she just needed to use that simple D-rank jutsu to escape and incapacitate Suika. She figured the only real reasons her chakra went down at all were the shuriken clones and shuriken shadow clones. There was also the clone she used and the small amount of chakra needed for chakra scalpels, unsealing items, and D-rank jutsus. She sighed as she realized how stupid it was not to let the battle play out some more. Sure she might have lost but the people would be much more impressed…

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

Orochimaru sighed in exasperation as he saw Naifu body flicker back to the stands. He would have preferred if she had put on more of a show or at least gotten Suika out of the ground but a win was a win. He looked down at his son and as much as he tried to hide it, Orochimaru still noticed the disappointment on his son's face. He chuckled and rubbed his son's head. "Relax Akuma-kun. The next fight should prove to be the most interesting. Just imagine it, brain vs brawn, one of the oldest styles of fighting in history. Aren't you excited for it?"

Akuma nodded reluctantly but pouted at his father rubbing his head in public. It was just embarrassing. He fruitlessly attempted to move his father's hand before sighing and allowing him to continue ruffling his hair. "I don't know. It will be weird to see my sealing sensei and my taijutsu sensei fight each other. I just don't know who to root for…"

Orochimaru chuckled at his son's predicament as he signaled for a 30 minute break to start. He wondered how Project Falcon was going… it would be a shame if all of his work to get the tournament aired in Konoha was ruined by no-one watching it. Oh well, if that was not enough of a distraction he was sure Kabuto could come up with something, he was a smart kid after all…

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

Kabuto snuck around Konoha slowly towards the Hyuga Clan compound. This was the day. After a few years of study and failure, Otogakure had finally created a seal that could counter the Hyuga Curse Seal. Project Falcon was probably the biggest mission ever attempted in any of the villages to his knowledge. Orochimaru had put this plan in motion ever since his son had indivertibly given him the idea. This was the only day they could ever put this plan into motion as the 20 patrollers were all branch members part of the plan and the main branch member supervising them was poisoned earlier at the café he goes to many times.

The plan was relatively simple, but was so risky that no-one had ever had the nerve to try it. Orochimaru wasn't like everyone else. The plan was to unseal all of the guards with a paper seal that was similar to a chakra suppression seal but took all of the chakra out of only the seal, therefore making it useless but not erasing the seal. Afterwards, all 20 guards would create shadow clones to go throughout the clan and erase all branch member seals. And then the fun would start… Kabuto thought with an evil smile. He had always taken great pleasure in giving people what they deserve and actually dreamed of founding something similar to Konoha's Police Force in the future in Oto.

The branch family of the Hyuga numbered at around 500 people while the main branch only had 50 people. With the curse seal, the main branch could always quell any uprising that would ever form but with it gone, the branch family could overtake the main branch with pure numbers. Most would be killed while distracted by the tournament on the radio and Kabuto was thankful that the Hyuga Clan never gave off much chakra while fighting the others so that Anbu would not catch on to the revolt. After the main branch was… taken care of… then Kabuto would use a summoning scroll to summon many earth style ninjutsu users. That was when it got complicated.

The Anbu would no doubt notice the large amount of chakra used for the summoning technique, too large for any Hyuga to use normally. That was why he would have many Hyuga patrolling the wall before he put the plan in motion to explain that they were working on a new clan technique that used a ton of chakra. If the Anbu did not listen, they were ordered to exterminate them and hide them behind the wall. As Kabuto was met outside the wall by one of the guards he decided to go over terms.

"Now, Hyuga-san, Orochimaru-sama wants me to tell you that in return for us erasing the seal, helping you kill the main family, and getting you outside of Konoha and persecution he will need you all to do a few things. At least half of you will be required to join Otogakure, the remaining family will be split into three combat groups all led by a different commander; the Hyuga Medic Unit, Hyuga Archery Unit, and Hyuga Taijutsu Unit, and all information about Konoha will be revealed to him."

The man looked sickened to know that they were making a deal with Orochimaru but he eventually sighed and nodded his head wearily. "To get freedom we will even make deals with the devil…" he mumbled sadly. "However, only 300 of us will be in on the plan, 100 of the others are just too loyal. We will all join our village for protection under one condition," he looked at Kabuto very seriously at this last part. "You will not do harm to the Hyuga heiress, Hinata Hyuga. If Hizashi was willing to give his life for the girl then we will allow her to win. Also, Neji Hyuga will be part of an elite unit that will give him proper training, no exceptions."

Kabuto gave the man an eerie smile and put out his hand. The hyuga looked at it for a long moment before sighing and shaking it. "Good, I am glad that is settled. And do not worry about Neji, he will be put on a team with the heir of Oto himself if I have anything to say in the matter. Here." Before the man could respond, Kabuto handed him a large stack of papers with sealing writing all over the front of it and walked towards the gates. "Now… let's get this party started."

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

 **Thank you all for reading my story this far, I really appreciate it. Also, if you like time travel stories you should check out my other story, A Demon's Mercy. I will not explain it here, you will just have to read the summary. Anyway, next chapter will wrap up the tournament and start Project Falcon. Afterwards, Neji will meet up with Akuma. Also, soon Akuma will be shown the dark side of Otogakure which I am sure a few of you are waiting for. Finally, please tell me what you all thought of the fights and how they played out, I would love to hear your opinions. Don't forget to rate and review, I will see you guys next chapter!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, or any other anime/manga for that matter. This is just a parody and all rights belong to their specific owners.**

 **Review Responses:**

 **Antex- The Legendary Zoroark (February 17)- Yep, this had been an idea that I had thought up of a long time ago and I briefly considered making a whole fanfiction off of it but I wasn't into the idea enough to do that. And yes, you did sound a bit like the stereotypical evildoer there. Thank you for the compliments about the last chapter and I personally love writing fights like these. Finally, Project Falcon is the elimination of the main Hyuga branch while also converting most of the Hyuga to Otogakure. The only exception to this will be Hinata Hyuga for reasons explained in this chapter.**

 **Nwandu225 (February 17)- Yep, Neji will be in Akuma's personal squad. I felt like Team Guy as a whole really did not receive enough screen time especially since it was my favorite team. I have a whole different plan for Sasuke however… Finally, as for your request to read your new fanfiction Catastrophe, holy shit. It is an extremely well written and enjoyable fanfiction and that was just the first two chapters. I personally would recommend it to everyone who is currently reading this, I will not improve the word count by talking too much about his story, so you just have to look at it yourself.**

 **Namitthekind (February 19)- Thanks for the compliment and yea I meant to say naginata, but always thought it was nagintina. My mistake, I have fixed it now though.**

 **dbtiger63 (February 23)- Thanks! And yea he really is being treated better in Oto. Also, about the Kage Bunshin flaw, I just figured that since it is made out of chakra, the muscle memory, physical conditioning, and reflexes cannot transport over as well. Everything else can of course but I see what you're saying. You are also right with the fact that he wouldn't be a ninjutsu expert without this ability since those are chakra based attacks.**

 **1212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212**

Hirashi Hyuga was one of the most esteemed people in all of the Hyuga Clan after 50 years of hard work and careful manipulation. He had been accepted into the main branch on his twentieth birthday after marrying a noblewoman and being on a respected shinobi team that had contributed greatly in both the Second and Third Shinobi World Wars. He was easily jounin level but his true talents laid in deception and manipulation.

He had been the one to convince the previous clan heir to make the law that made the youngest child of any main branch member be forced to have the seal put onto them. He had also helped make the decision to change the seal from one that simply kept the Byakugan from the enemy's hands into one that made all branch members their servants. He also had a son, only one as his wife was not strong enough to survive the birth, who was also high up in the ranks. The two had been trying to sabotage the standing of Hinata Hyuga ever since her birth. The Hyuga Affair had been his best work of art in his personal opinion. Of course, all it did was convince their clan head to have another child but at least he got rid of the branch family's most influential member. Oh well, he could always do something about his dear wife in the future.

As he walked down the halls of the main branch compound to his room he noticed something a bit off in the room next to his. In a flash he was in front of his son's door and slammed the door open with his Byakugan activated. He soon wished that he had not done so as he saw his son and his wife both dead on the ground and could see in vivid detail the states of their internal organs with his eyes. He narrowed his eyes at the men responsible for this, three branch members of all things, and put his hand in a single seal. How dare they ruin all of his hard work! He would have been the father of the clan head and would have had even more influence if they hadn't ruined it all. Oh, he was going to enjoy killing them…

"Pain!" he yelled out in rage but was soon left gasping as one of them moved at high speeds and hit his heart with a jyuken strike to the heart. "How…?" Hirashi gasped out as blood started to flow down from his mouth.

The branch member just smirked and wiped off the curse seal with a smug look. "We aren't your slaves anymore old man, when you meet Taiyo in the afterlife, tell him his old teammate sent ya." Right before Hirashi died, he recognized the smug bastard. Ryuu was the name of the man, one of the best trackers in Hyuga history. Taiyo had been the one who made it to where Ryuu wasn't accepted into the main branch since he was unneeded competition. How disgusting… being defeated by someone lesser than him, Taiyo deserved to rot in hell for that. With that last… positive thought, Hirashi saw nothing but darkness.

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

Kabuto smiled as he crept through the halls of the clan head's home with four Hyuga members. They had been haggling over the details of the Oto deal for the past hour, so it was good to have a bit of stress release to seal the deal. In the end they added two new divisions for the new clan as well as change the last name to prevent unwanted memories. They would now be known as the Taka clan with the five divisions being the taijutsu division, the medical division, the assassination division which would train in stealth and archery, the tracking division, and the elites who were trained by each division.

These groups would not train in only these things but would make these skills their priority to learn. They would all be led by a person from the elite group chosen by each division head since five members from each clan are put into the elite division, so there was a diversity. Kabuto sighed as he continued to move silently through the house. Right when he thought the negotiations were over, one crafty bastard had mentioned the new divisions so that he could lead the tracking one, Ryuu or something.

Oh well, it hardly mattered now. Kabuto was finally at Hiashi's room and, not wasting any time, he kicked down the door and the branch members moved out. "What is the meaning of this?!" Hiashi yelled out, standing up from where he was sitting with his family. He tried to activate the seal but did not even get that far as his shoulders were hit with jyuken strikes. He growled and abandoned that tactic to begin spinning. "Kaiten!" he yelled out as he rotated and conjured up a large blue sphere that knocked away the three branch members that surrounded him.

"Hiashi…" he heard to his right. He quickly looked to where his wife had been only to see his eldest knocked out and his wife in the hands of some teenager with a kunai at her neck.

"Let her g- urk!" he yelled as he was struck in the back by the remaining branch member. He could only watch helplessly as his wife's throat was split and a kunai raced towards him. Then all he saw was oblivion…

"Was that really necessary Kabuto-san?" the last branch member asked as he looked down in distaste at Kana Hyuga's unmoving body.

"Orochimaru-sama has already given you all plenty of leeway by allowing Hinata to live. Allowing anyone else of the main branch to is simply a liability. Now then, let's check on your comrades, I did not expect Hiashi to put up this much of a fight…" Kabuto said with a sick smirk. He really enjoyed watching people suffer, it made him feel like he was in control and nothing could be done against him. It was a shame that he couldn't kill that Hinata girl, but since she had been nothing but nice to the branch family and had never used the seal on any of them they demanded that he let her live. Oh well, it would be interesting to see what she would do in the future.

Two of the other branch members were dead from head trauma while the other had a broken arm thanks to their rather violent launch into the wall. Kabuto couldn't wait to get his hands on that Kaiten technique of his, that would prove to be very valuable in the future… Anyway, Kabuto walked out of the room, his stress officially relieved, to begin the next phase of his plan. All of the techniques had already been secured so now all that was left was the evacuation. Who knows, if he was lucky he might be able to cause even more pain… With a laugh that chilled the other person in the room to the bone, the teenager exited the room to begin the next stage of the operation. As the two left, they both failed to notice the crying girl in the corner of the room with her Byakugan active and a look that was so filled with hatred that it put any Uchiha's to shame.

"Orochimaru…" the girl mumbled as that was the first thing she heard when she had woken up. Apparently Kabuto had made it to where she would awaken shortly after being knocked out so she could see his handiwork sooner than later. "I will do everything I can to kill him… Kabuto too, I will kill you all…" she mumbled with hatred as she eventually fell to unconsciousness from both the emotional and physical strain.

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

Jiraiya shivered as he looked down at the arena floor, seeing the two fighters who had finally entered the stadium. He had an extremely bad feeling, like something had happened that would weaken Konoha extremely. Oh well, it was probably nothing, besides he wanted to see how this next fight panned out.

"Would you like anything Jiraiya-sama?" a young man asked him as he held up a tray with a few items already on it for others.

"I'd like a soda please," he said with a grin as he gave the man some money to get him a drink. Little did anyone know that this was one of his many spies that would record information for him. Maybe he could find out if this village had anything to do with the bad feeling from earlier…

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

Ken was very calm as he walked down to the arena with Naifu beside him. He knew the girl well, how could he not after being on the same squad as her for so long, and knew most of her tricks. Of course, this could be applied vice versa as his cousin knew many of his tricks as well. He couldn't let her think, that was obvious, so with a nod of his head he decided that an immediate assault was his best bet.

The two both looked up to Orochimaru who just pointed a thumb over at Akuma with an amused face. With a serious look on his face, which was entirely negated by his childish body, he raised his arm and let it fall to let them know to begin. Without a single word spoken, Ken threw his arm out at Naifu as many iron senbon shot out from his open palm towards Naifu. She pulled out her new tantos in a flash and deflected all of them before smirking at her cousin. This was an act, she never showed emotion during a fight, she barely showed any in a normal day. She must be stalling for time.

"You shouldn't underestimate me cousin, if you do I will defeat you with less effort than it took for Suika," she said smugly. She was trying to make Ken run out of chakra then… well the solution to that was simple.

"Fine," Ken said just as smugly and a naginata formed in the palm of his hand. He had trained Naifu in the tantos himself and he knew that she was only a chunin level with them. Add that to the better range of his naginata and this fight would be his. He charged forward point first towards Naifu and she barely had time to dodge the strike with a leap to the right. This was what Ken wanted however as he slammed the shaft into her stomach, launching her across the arena. Unfortunately for him, she stood up a moment later and was able to negate most of the damage by a quick block with her tantos.

Naifu hurriedly sheathed her tantos and began using hand seals. She didn't like using ninjutsu thanks to her low chakra reserves but she was left with no choice. She could use both earth style and water style but only knew a few jutsu for both. Unfortunately, this next jutsu would take out a quarter of her chakra reserves but she had to act fast and hesitance was not an option. She quickly went into a strange stance that only a few recognized as the stance for the Hidden Mist Jutsu stance. "Water Style: Hidden Mist Jutsu!" she yelled out as a thick mist began to fill the area.

Ken frowned as the mist began to surround him and he couldn't see anywhere around him. Oh well, time to show another trick of his. He formed a large fan that was reminiscent to Madara's and reared back before swinging it all around him. This was successful as all of the mist faded away to reveal… nothing. Ken sighed at this and deformed his naginata and his gunbai before forming hand seals for another technique. Before he could finish, he had to cover his arm in iron to deflect all of the shuriken thrown at him. He managed to block most of them, but one managed to catch him in the shoulder.

He growled but chuckled as he absorbed the metal into his system, actually replenishing some of the chakra he lost. Naifu saw this and went back underground to try and think of a new strategy. However, before she could do so, Ken once again preformed his hand seals and slammed his hands on the ground. "Iron Style: Tracking Iron Serpents!" he yelled as about 30 iron snakes went out from his palms into the ground.

The way this jutsu worked was that Ken had to recognize the chakra of the other person in his system, in this case the chakra coated shuriken that Naifu threw, and made iron snakes that could effortlessly move through the ground and track down the individual they were sent for. This was an A-rank jutsu and one of his strongest, which was seen when Naifu leapt out of the ground with 25 snakes after her. The problem was, he had to sacrifice defense with movement so it only took one well-placed hit to destroy them. This was also seen when Naifu used her tantos to destroy most of them. The remaining snakes went back underground to await further instruction and would come back when he needed them to.

"I hate those snakes," Naifu gritted out through clenched teeth. They were the reason that she had lost most of their sparring matched after all.

"Well that's a shame," Ken said calmly as he faded into mud.

"What?" Naifu asked intelligently before her eyes widened and she turned around to catch and iron coated fist in the stomach. Before her eyes closed she smirked as a puff of smoke appeared and sizzling was heard. As the smoke faded, Ken saw a block of mud with many exploding tags on it.

"Oh shi-," Ken began to say before a large explosion engulfed his form. Naifu came out of the ground a moment later while the area around Ken was covered with smoke. She had already used up half of her chakra in the fight and had to rip an iron snake off her forearm before preparing some shuriken to throw.

Everyone in the stands were on the edge of their seats, except for Akuma who asked his father to lift him up for a better view, as they saw the smoke start to dissipate. In the middle of it was a man who was completely covered in iron and many cheered at the fact that they got to see the famed Black Steel Jutsu twice in one day. Ken on the other hand, was pissed off. She could have killed him with that last attack if he wasn't so good with this jutsu! Ken decided it was time to end the fight and formed a few hand seals before charging at Naifu.

Naifu recognized those hand seals and smirked before throwing her shuriken. Ken had planned to just deflect them but was surprised to see explosive seals on the insides of the shuriken. He quickly ducked and watched as the shuriken flew over his head…and blew up with a loud _BANG!_ He faceplanted before slowly getting up and forming different hand seals, much to Naifu's relief. The jutsu he was about to use was called the Spinning Iron Drill which had spikes all along it as well as the normal drill that came out of his palm. It come out of his palm and surrounded the rest of his arm and was only usable in his Black Steel form. This was because it was so damaging that it would rip his arm off without the iron protecting it, no matter where a person was hit by it, they would face extreme damage, even a grazing blow as the spiked could elongate. In fact, if Naifu looked closely she saw the iron on his right arm was a bit scraped from even starting the jutsu.

She did not get much time to ponder this as Ken finished his hand seals and threw out both palms towards her. "Iron Style: Iron Vortex!" he yelled as two tips of iron began to come out of his palms. Soon they became two medium sized drills that were completely iron and had small spikes on them. They both shot out at her at high speeds and began spinning. She managed to dodge the first one, but the second one grazed her side, grating into her skin and tearing away a small chunk of it. She cried out in pain and fell to one knee while glaring at her opponent. 'Damn it!' she thought in anger and pain, temporarily throwing all her kunoichi composer to the side. 'Fine, it's time for my strongest jutsu… get ready cousin, because you won't like this one bit.'

Naifu began to slowly stand up while Ken ran towards her. Ignoring this, she began the hand seals required for her final gamble. Throughout the battle she had been to the five corners necessary for this jutsu and had placed a seal in each one, now the entire arena was her territory. "Sealing Art: Five Trigram Paralyze Seal!" she yelled out as each of the five corners glowed blue before blue lightning came from them and wrapped themselves around Ken. Ken screamed in pain at this as iron was a conductor for electricity so it was even worse for him to get caught in it.

Naifu nodded and pulled out her tantos to prepare for a victory as Ken started to release his Black Steel Jutsu. She charged forth and was about to hit Ken in the shoulder before her seal suddenly ended and she felt a large pain in her own shoulder. She slowly looked down to see an iron spike trailing from Ken's chest of all things right into her shoulder. "H-how?" she asked weakly as she was about to go unconscious from blood loss and pain.

Ken simply pointed to one of the seals and her eyes widened when she saw that one of the iron snakes she hadn't killed had pierced it, ruining the seal. "You almost had me, but I have seen this seal too many times to not have a plan for it. Now rest, it was a good fight and I have a feeling you will surpass me one day… But don't get cocky that day is still far off," Ken said with one of his rare smiles. Naifu decided to rewards it with a smile of her own and fell unconscious. It was nice to see her cousin a little happy again…

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

As the medics carried Naifu off the field in a stretcher and helped Ken hobble to the medical bay as well for chakra loss Akuma couldn't help but be amazed. He had no idea his sensei was that strong! Sure, he was a master with weapons and he had heard of his Black Steel Jutsu but he was throwing jutsu Akuma had never heard of before like crazy. "Father, you think I can ever learn those jutsu?" Akuma asked excitedly while looking up at his father.

"Kukuku, I am afraid not Akuma-kun, those jutsu can only be performed by a Tetsu. You see they have a kekkai genkai that allows them to produce iron from their skin and use it in ways like that. You will never be able to do those jutsu, but you can always invent your own if you want to use some unique ones," Orochimaru told his son while mentally thinking about making Ken an S-rank shinobi. He had shown exceptional skill in his battles and had been the one to invent most of those Iron Style techniques. The only ones he hadn't invented were the Iron Senbon Jutsu and the Iron Vortex Jutsu, which were invented by the clan head.

"How did he get the kekkai genkai?" Akuma asked curiously.

"Well, that's simple, I gave it to him," Orochimaru said with a little bit of pride in his voice. That had been one of his most successful experiments ever even after all the others he had done. Although there was one involving a potential plasma bloodline that he was currently working on that looked promising. All it did was amplify a fire affinity to a ridiculous degree as well as modify the body to be able to handle it. If it worked, it would be one of his best ever, right on par with the Tetsu Clan.

"Then why can't you give it to me?" Akuma asked a little dejectedly. He was starting to think that maybe his father did not believe he could handle the power. Why else would he not let him have something that could give him more after all? He only wanted to make his father proud and wanted to use every tool at his disposal to do so.

Orochimaru looked at his son and sighed. It seemed like the moment he had been avoiding was finally here… "Akuma-kun, it is something that is very complex and many people actually find it inhumane but it isn't. We are making people as strong as they can be but to do so involves a lot of pain as well as death. However, they all know the price for this kind of strength and are willing to pay it. I don't want to tell you too much about it today as I don't want to ruin the day for you. Instead I will tell you all about it tomorrow and show you one of my more promising experiments, as they are called, tomorrow. Can you wait until then?"

Akuma slowly nodded, suddenly a little afraid about what he might see. Father and son both sat in awkward silence for a while until Orochimaru broke it. "Well, come on. I know you want to go to that ramen stand again so let's." At this Akuma made a happy smile and began to talk excitedly about it among thanks. After seeing that smile, Orochimaru decided that maybe the village going bankrupt was a fair enough price to pay.

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

Elsewhere a man sat silently while looking over a raining city. His plan was progressing nicely, all they needed were a few more members to join their ambition as well as the locations of a few more things they were hunting. As he contemplated in silence a strange creature that looked like a combination of a venus fly trap and a human popped out of the ground. Half of it was a sickly white while the other half was pitch black.

" **Master we have found the jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi as you have asked** ," the black half of the creature said in a deep, raspy voice.

"Yeah! And we also found two possible new members! One's a bit creepy but he is very strong and the other can actually turn into iron! He is loyal to his village though so that's a bummer…" the white side of the creature said in a bright, light tone.

The man they were talking to hummed before slowly opening his purple, ringed eyes to look upon the city that he recently liberated. "Good work Zetsu… tell Sasori and Kisame they are to find the possible recruits and try to bring them to our side. Also, tell them not to give away too much and not to wear their cloaks, we don't want the villages to know about us just yet…"

" **As you wish Master**."

"Byeeeeeee," with that the creature dubbed Zetsu disappeared once more into the floor for his new assignment, leaving the man to think once more.

'Soon,' he thought. 'Soon, this world will know true pain, and there will finally be peace.' He began to smile slowly, a rare sight for Nagato Uzumaki, otherwise known as Pein. 'I wonder if this is what you would have wanted… Yahiko…'

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

 **AN: Well that's a wrap! I have been attempting to write this chapter for a long time but I just couldn't find a way to start it off that was even decent, let alone like this. Oh well, I am sorry for not posting in so long but I have been busy with surgery recovery, school, work, and other fanfictions I have started writing, however I no longer have a deadline as I write whenever I really feel like it. Speaking of which, bit of shameless advertising here, I have recently started writing a self-insert fanfiction called The Shinobi Alchemist where the main character is from the human world but died and was reincarnated as a Naruto character, original I know, anyway his presence alone will change many things in the world. I was too lazy to think of an original special power as well so I just gave him alchemy instead which I think will be cool. Anyway, we have covered a ton in this chapter! Akuma will learn about the experiments soon as well as see a character that will make an appearance later on, Hinata seems to have a bit of a grudge now, can't imagine why, and Ken may be promoted to S-rank soon! Also, I know this story is going by slow and I am sorry for that. I actually have pretty good ideas for the future of the story, but it is taking longer than I thought to get to them. After next chapter I am planning on making them longer though so maybe that will help. Anyway, thank you all for reading and please don't forget to rate and review. See ya later!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, or any other anime/manga for that matter. This is just a parody and all rights belong to their specific owners.**

 **Extra Disclaimer: I do not own the OC Takami Yamazaki, this character is the sole property of Antex- The Legendary Zoroark and I make no claims towards it. If anyone else wants to make any OCs and send them to me to put in the story don't feel shy, I would be happy to insert them.**

 **Also, it is the very early morning after the tournament and Project Falcon is finally coming to a close. Next chapter is when you all will meet Akuma's new team members and I hope you won't be disappointed in my picks.**

 **Review Responses:**

 **Antex-The Legendary Zoroark (March 9)- I am happy to see that you think making my chapters longer is a good idea as well. Of course, this will result in longer periods between update times but hopefully the quality will override the quantity, also, yes that plasma user will be introduced in this chapter.**

 **Lazymanjones96 (March 9)- Thanks**

 **TigrezzTail (March 9)- Thanks, and I will continue to bring unique skills and characters into the mix. Plus, I have always believed in expanding about character's backstories and pasts, I mean, it is hard to get attached if you know only how the characters are supposed to look and act.**

 **Lovelyladie15 (March 10)- Thanks, and the next update is here now, enjoy.**

 **1212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212**

If Orochimaru had to pick one word to describe how he felt towards Akuma, it would be proud. He had never been this proud towards anyone in his life, even his pride in Anko's accomplishments seemed microscopically small compared to his pride towards his adopted son. He was more proud of his brain than anything else, but right now he was cursing it. The reason for that was because his son had asked, no demanded, to see the experiments he was putting his people through. It had been a day since the tournament and he was now being forced to show his 5 year old son what the experiments were.

Damn it, when did he get so soft? The old him wouldn't have even thought twice before showing Akuma the experiments in the hope that it would toughen him up, but now he was… scared? Yes, scared was a good word to describe what he was feeling. He was scared that his son would not accept him after he saw the experiments, he was scared he would be like his sensei and be disgusted with him without even looking into the facts. Hell, they still had not figured out that the only people he had experimented on were the mortally ill or dangerous criminals that would have died whether he experimented on them or not. He had saved that Tenzo boy with the healing cells from Hashirama Senju, the wood style bloodline had just been a side effect for his attempts to cure his disease.

However, that was beside the point. His son was smart enough to be considered the son of a Nara, which many conspiracy theorists were already guessing at, and was going to know that this was for the good of Oto and they only helped the village. Sure, there were casualties, he still remembered the mass funeral of the stiff Fuma Clan members who did not survive the experiments, but those who survived were that much stronger. Surely, Akuma would be able to see the benefits that came with experimentation, surely he saw how it made criminals think twice after seeing the malformed remains of their fellow criminals. Surely, he knew that everything that he did was for the good of Otogakure and Akuma.

Orochimaru actually winced as he thought about that last part. That actually wasn't true and he knew it. He was more loyal to himself than the village and was only actually making it better because of Akuma and his old dream. He briefly wondered what would have happened if he had never adopted Akuma, and had no-one to tie him down emotionally and keep him from turning completely insane. However, soon his immortality jutsu would be complete and he could wholly focus on bettering his village. The only question for him was who to possess. An Uchiha was the obvious first choice, but it would be a shame if his jutsu did not work and he accidentally killed a good body for the future. A Tetsu would be the other choice, but if they ever found out he possessed one they would leave in the blink of an eye. Maybe, he would just possess strong prisoners the first few times and then he would get the strongest body possible. Maybe a Hyuga would be a good choice…

Anyway, Orochimaru got his mind back on track after realizing he was ignoring the situation at hand. He and Akuma had enjoyed the rest of the festival and now he had much more paperwork to fill out. First, he had to fill out the forms that said that he would allow all of the franchises to come into Oto. He had 3 Konoha ones, 2 Land of Fire ones, 4 Land of Water ones, 1 Land of Wave one, 1 Land of Earth one, and 3 Kumo ones. They were almost all civilian stores except for one from Konoha that was called Ha Heiki. They even sent a talented swordsmith that was accepting apprentices from Otogakure, so he hoped that they weren't spies. However, he wasn't stupid, so he had at least one skilled ninja monitoring each business 24/7. These were usually chunin trying to meet the minimum mission requirements for the jounin exams, but there was a jounin here and there.

Speaking of jounin… Orochimaru sighed as he thought about one of the village's best jounin. Ken Tetsu had proved in the tournament that he was not a force to be trifled with but he could not decide if he was really S-class material yet or not. To put him on the same ranking as Kakashi of the Sharingan, the Sanin, and Hanzo the Salamander was like saying that Oto was now capable of producing its own legends and therefore a threat. Also, in terms of S-class shinobi, Ken was more on the level of Kakashi than anyone else and if the two were to fight, he had no idea who would win.

With a shake of his head, Orochimaru thought, quite elegantly, 'Screw it, it will be interesting to see what happens.' He then wrote himself a note reminding him to meet with Ken to tell him of his new rank and to meet with the council to tell them of his new rank as well. He would also be sending him on missions again because of his new rank and would probably have to find a new teacher for Akuma until Ken could come back to teaching. What was different about loyal S-class members from missing-nin S-class shinobi was that with the new rank they would have to do many missions to prove that the rank was correctly given.

Orochimaru actually smiled as he thought about S-class Oto shinobi a bit more. A few other shinobi had the potential to become S-rank as well, especially Guren, while the rest are A-rank material. He wouldn't be surprised if the entirety of the Elemental Countries started talking about 'Black Steel' soon. He looked at the clock on the wall of his Otokage tower and sighed. It was time… it was time to show Akuma the secrets of the village. Orochimaru could only hope that Akuma still thought of him as his father afterwards.

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

Neji Hyuga, no, Neji Taka looked around the remnants of his clan with wide eyes a disgusted look on his face. Sure, he hated the main branch for killing his father and putting the curse seal on him, but this… this was a bit much. There were fifty crosses up in the middle of the compound with the fifty highest ranking Hyuga nailed to each and every one. A few were still alive, but they wouldn't be for long judging by their wounds. He looked to the right and saw the many bodies of the branch family that refused to fight the main branch. Kabuto, as he learned Orochimaru's spy was named, had found out the secret to their seal and had them all killed with the very seal they were free from now.

Free… was an odd term to use in this situation. Originally they had thought that they could choose where to go after leaving Konoha, but they doubt that is a choice now. Where could they go? Mist hated bloodlines, Kumo would kill all but a few of them to be used to have many loyal, subservient Hyuga children, Iwa would not think that they were disloyal enough against Konoha, and Suna were Konoha's allies. As it turned out, their best bet at survival was with Orochimaru and his village. On the bright side, he would be trained by the best and put on a team with Oto's up and coming protégé.

That would be interesting he guessed, but he was still a bit disgusted at his clansmen's actions. Oh well, he supposed it was simply their fate to die by their hands, just as it was the main branch's fate to die at the hands of their slaves. He was brought out of his musings by a small amount of smoke and ten Oto shinobi appearing by the man named Kabuto. He told them some instructions and then slunk off somewhere, only Kami knows where. Neji looked at their feet to see how they were summoned and was shocked to see a scroll with the kanji for summon on it.

He did not have much time to ponder this as he heard a signal from the wall and a few Taka members went to the location to fight off responding Anbu. They needed to get out, and fast. Apparently, the Oto shinobi had read his young mind because they began to form hand seals at the same time and slammed their hands on the ground. "Earth Style: Gopher Tunnel Jutsu!" they all yelled at the same time and a large hole, which seemed to be an entrance of some kind, appeared in the ground.

Five immediately went down into the hole and the other five were directing all of the Taka members, including himself, into the hole with cold efficiency and speed. These were professional shinobi and could defeat him with just a hand if they wanted to. Neji silently hoped that fate decided to make him a shinobi stronger than them and one day be a famed ninja himself. Right before he went down the tunnel entrance he saw the five shinobi above throw their Oto forehead protectors and put on Kumo forehead protectors. That was… interesting, oh well if Fate decided to start a war then who was he to stop it. With that he walked down the tunnel to join his new clan, ignoring the closing of the entrance behind him.

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121211212121212121

Kabuto, hidden from view, watched silently as the Taka members guarding the walls eventually fell to the better Anbu shinobi. They had taken a few with them however, so their lives were not a waste at least. He couldn't wait until the Taka Clan got to Oto however, they had all of the main branch techniques at their disposal and would be a great help to Otogakure. His eyes widened slightly in surprise when he saw the famed Chidori cut right through one Taka member. So Kakashi was still in the Anbu… that was surprising. He had to be about 20 by now, which meant that he was in the Anbu for 7 years now. Usually Anbu broke after 5 years of active duty so Kakashi was 2 years overdue.

Oh well, it didn't really matter anyway. The five members that would go with the Taka would close up the pathway back more and more as they went on so that the Anbu would never be able to find where it began. The other five would be disguised as Iwa shinobi and had the gear and look to pull it off. They were all originally Kumo shinobi anyway, brainwashed to go on this mission and hopefully cause tensions between Kumogakure and Konoha. The best part about that was that if a war did come around, Otogakure could be an ally to one of the two major powers and gain their trust before betraying them when it was convenient.

Kabuto was there to make sure no-one was able to tie anything to Otogakure, if Kumo found out that Oto framed them, it could be a minor problem. Of course, it was nothing a few threats and favors couldn't handle since the villages framed each other so often that it was more shocking if someone didn't frame another. Not framing someone was like an insult now, it basically said that the enemy shinobi did not even think it was worth their time to frame someone. That had been one of the many insults between villages that started the Third Shinobi World War.

Kabuto continued looking around and smiled slightly when the Kumo shinobi were swiftly killed by Anbu. They weren't much more than chunin level after all, not a threat at all. Right before he was about to leave he noticed Kakashi step out of the main house with a small child in his arms. Damn, that was the girl that he had left alive. Kabuto growled before slinking away into the shadows once more. He knew that those Taka pricks' demands would come back to bite them all in the ass, but he didn't really want to start a civil war in his village over it.

With that he left the property of the, previous, Hyuga Clan looking like a normal civilian, even receiving and giving nods to the Konoha Police Force. It was so easy to infiltrate Konoha Kabuto couldn't help but smirk in satisfaction. Now, he would find a nice vantage point to see how the village reacted to the news of one of their most prestigious clans being destroyed without anyone noticing. It would surely be a blow to the pride of the village and Oto might even gain a few missing nin from the deal. His smirk grew bigger when he heard the first anguished cry and it soon turned into a full on grin, which he carefully hid, when he heard the new ones. Oh, he couldn't wait until his next mission, but it would be hard for it to top this one…

121212121212121212121212121212121121212121212121212121212121212121

Kenshi sighed as he lazily watched a bird fly by from the window of his carriage. It had been a long day, he had been shooed out of the hidden village almost as soon as the tournament ended and was now riding to his palace in relative peace. He had talked with Michael, who had left about halfway to his palace, for a long time about the details of land transfer. He would have control over his entire territory in exchange for a few million dollars as well as the hidden village.

Actually, calling it a hidden village was a bit of a stretch as there were fewer than 600 shinobi actually there. However, he had decided not to disband it just yet as Michael was going to for a simple reason. This… Hidan fellow was worrying to hear about. He was easily chunin level at 15 years old but had not been promoted because of his large bloodlust. He also worshiped a god by the name of Jashin and was the most vocal supporter of remaining a shinobi village. Killing him would make him a martyr in all likelihood and start a civil war.

He had no doubt that he would win the war but there would be a lot of money lost in the deal. Not only that, but there may be public dissent for a long time later, which could be easily manipulated by a larger village into a force that would start a civil war, now with more shinobi backing it. No, he had to go about this very carefully to keep a war from happening and actually make the money spent on the country back. No matter what he would make Yugakure the prime tourist spot of the Land of Sound, but he would do it slowly. He would convince the shinobi of the village that it wasn't worth it to stay a shinobi village. This meant that all of Yugkure's missions would have to be given to Otogakure instead and more and more tourist spots would have to be put in the village. In a few years it would be complete and the Land of Sound will get another large source of profit besides their rice patty market.

Thankfully, before he left, he had been able to talk to the Otokage briefly and his plan for the future of his country was approved. Now all he had to do was appease the shinobi from Yugakure enough to not start a civil war while training competent samurai and ruling his country well at the same time. Easy, right?

Kenshi sighed again and closed his eyes briefly while holding his head up with a closed fist. He still sometimes couldn't believe he had gotten wrapped up in all this mess. Just a few years ago, he had been just another abused prince who had dreams for the future and his country. He wasn't even that special yet he had suddenly been made the ruler of one country and was about to combine it with another in his early reign. He did not even really look like a ruler if he was honest with himself.

He always wore a bored expression on his teenage face and had his green hair, gotten from his mother, held back in a ponytail that he had seen on a few Yamanakas before. He had a bang of it covering his left eye while the other was a deep blue that looked similar to the ocean. He wore a purple kimono with the kanji for sound on the back of it and a golden dragon was stitched into it to where it seemed like it is slithering up and around his body from the bottom of his kimono. Inside his kimono was a katana and he wore a blue t-shirt and brown pants as well. He was good enough with the katana to fight off a few bandits but not anyone above low genin level unfortunately. Maybe he could get someone to train him as well as a future samurai force.

He shook his head tiredly before dozing off for a bit of shut eye. Maybe a bit of sleep would help with the furthering of his plans… somehow. He got about five seconds of it before the carriage came abruptly to a stop and he was pulled out of it at high speeds. Before he could even comprehend what had happened, his carriage was on fire and he had to pull out his sword to block a kunai. Luckily, the one who threw it was quickly dealt with as was the one who started the fire. There was only one more ninja who was swinging a scythe with a smile on his face. Kenshi barely recognized the face and commanded his jounin to bring him to him but let him live.

"Hey! What are you doing assholes?! Put me the f**k down!" the white haired teen yelled as he was brought in front of Kenshi.

"Quiet, Hidan, what are you doing here?" Kenshi asked calmly but with authority within his voice. Hidan did not seem impressed.

"I came here to kill your sorry ass!" he yelled out with a grin. "After I heard about what old Michael was up to, I knew you'd try to turn our village into a bunch of pansies so I had to act. Most of the others wouldn't join me so I had to do some forbidden Jashinist ritual to be able to kill them all! The assholes started to follow me after that," he laughed out loud.

Kenshi looked at him for a minute, then two minutes, then Hidan got tired of waiting and attacked. Then he had two swords in his heart. That was… disappointing Kenshi guessed. He was about to turn around and walk the rest of the way when he heard Hidan groan behind him… and not in the painful way, though it was painful for them to hear. "Ohhhhhh yea that feels good," Hidan smiled as he pulled out the swords with a sick sound and beheaded two of his guards.

So… Hidan was immortal and seemed to love pain and death. Kenshi couldn't help but smile at this, despite Hidan's obvious amusement. This was the solution to the problem of the enemies being obviously stronger than his soon to be forces. "Hidan… how would you like to be able to kill as many people as you want?" Kenshi asked in what he hoped was a calming voice.

Hidan hesitated for a minute then smirked. "Why would I accept your proposal when I can already do that?"

"Because if you do this you will at least have one country where you can relax in without being hunted down. You will be treated as a hero for what you will be doing while killing people who can offer a challenge."

Hidan smiled at this and then licked the blood off of the swords before throwing them aside. "I want my own temple after all of this is done and a sacrifice for Jashin every day once I build the temple."

Kenshi nodded, they had plenty of prisoners and he wouldn't be surprised if they got many more prisoners from the conquests they were planning. He wasn't going to ONLY conquer the Land of Iron after all, he would also capture Snow, Frost, and Waterfall before this was all over and become the Sixth Great Shinobi Country. Also, once they had enough forces, they would go and take the Land of Whirlpools as well, furthering their power ever further.

Kenshi smiled a bit bigger as Hidan stood up to shake his hand. His guard unit tensed when they shook but seemed to relax slightly when they unclasped their hands. Kenshi looked towards his new subordinate who still wore his Yugakure protector around his neck and after a bit of consideration decided to let him keep it so that what he was going to do wouldn't be tied to Otogakure and written off as a crazy missing nin. "Your first assignment is to go to the Land of Frost and kill off their military and leadership. You are allowed to kill civilians only if you can't find any military personnel or leaders. If you find any rebels, deal with them immediately and efficiently." After looking around a bit more and finding a mask on the body of one of the men Hidan killed, he took it off him and handed it to the white haired Jashinist.

"Here, cover your face with this and maybe dye your hair a bit. We don't want anyone recognizing you after you do all of this and cause a civil war. That would be so much paperwork…" he sighed as Hidan took the mask and attached it to his face. It covered everything from his eyes down but his eyes held a sort of glee that made many people around uncomfortable.

"I like you Kenshi, I can tell that serving you is gonna be hella fun," he said as he picked up the scythe next to him. "Now then… any idea where the Land of Frost is?" Kenshi simply smirked and pointed in the general direction of the country.

"It's a bit cold there, you will tell where you are when you find snow. You don't need a coat or anything?"

Hidan laughed loudly before flexing and looking at his arm in a considering manner, "Nah, cold doesn't affect a willing servant of Jashin. Hey, would you like to join Jashin's Cult?"

"Hm, maybe after your missions are over. You have 2-3 more countries after this one after all." This made Hidan laugh louder and run off in the direction of the Land of Frost. Kenshi smirked before looking around at his guard unit that looked a little sickened. "What? You'd think ninja would be used to stuff like this. Oh well, let's go, it's a long walk to the palace." With that Kenshi began to walk, with his faithful guards following him. He would have to send a letter to Orochimaru later on explaining the situation, it wouldn't do to be killed before he could see the fruits of his labor after all.

121212121212121212121212121212112121212121212121212121212121212121

Akuma frowned in concentration as he held 20 leaves on each arm with only his chakra while reading Otogakure's bingo book. They had possibly the most detailed bingo book right behind Konoha's thanks to the Otokage's spy network, particularly Kabuto. Being a medic at the hospital for shinobi was very helpful in finding out the chakra capacity of ninja as well as their affinity and other minor details. Also, shinobi tended to be a bit more open around medics that had just healed them, especially when they were hopped up on a ton of drugs to numb pain.

Because of Kabuto's efforts, Otogakure knew most of Konoha's Anbu identities as well as their patrol routes and other security details that actually made many infiltration missions possible. Sadly, he wasn't allowed to know all of the details of all the missions but he had heard whispers about something called Project Falcon from jounin and members from the Oto clans. From what he had heard, it had something to do with the Hyuga Clan from Konoha so that meant that Oto's infiltration system was way better than he thought if they could sneak past the Hyuga.

However, what was the biggest thing on Akuma's mind at the moment was what he had said the previous night. He had said that he would tell him about the experimentations the next day, which was that day, and he was anxious. He knew that whatever his dad did he did it for the good of the village, but he wanted to know what that entailed. He was going to be Otokage one day so he needed to know what he was expected to do. If that meant experimentation on his own people then so be it… as long as it helped them.

Honestly, a part of him was excited to know what kinds of experiments his dad did. He had always loved to learn about knowledge and experimentation would let him learn so much more to hopefully better his beloved village. The other part of him was horrified that he was excited about such a thing. According to everything he had read or heard, experimentation was an evil and sickening thing. If his father was doing this without the people's consent, unless they were prisoners of course, then he would have a problem with that and, despite his love for his father, he would rally the ninja to revolt for the village when he got the chance.

Kami, he hoped that wasn't the case. He loved his father almost as much as he loved the village, but if it came down to it, he would choose the village over his father every time. The village accepted him, it trusted him and believed that he would be the one to make them the strongest village and shinobi in the world. He had read about how jinchuuriki were treated in other villages, and even though his village knew what he was, they only thought higher of him for it. They thought that it meant that he had more strength at his disposal and had no doubts that he could control the beast.

He sighed as all the leaves slowly fell from his arms. He was in one of the only training grounds with an actual tree in all of Oto, so thankfully he wouldn't have to clean them up. Thinking about everything had made him lose focus and cause the leaves to fall. How could he be a good shinobi if he lost focus over something like this when there were more important things on missions.

"Enough with the face kid, even ninja lose focus sometimes." Akuma looked up at the tree to see Ken hanging down from one of the branches. He let himself fall to the ground and rubbed Akuma's head, an odd sign of affection it seemed everyone was doing nowadays. "The trick is to know when it is acceptable to lose focus and when it isn't. Right now it is acceptable, but I better not find out you were doing so on a mission." He made his face look scary, and the effect was only enhanced as tears of iron began to flow down his cheeks. It just looked creepy…

"H-hai Ken-sensei," Akuma stuttered before getting tapped on the head for showing weakness.

Ken smirked a bit as his student rubbed his head with a small glare. He then schooled his features into a frown once more. He didn't know how, but Akuma had this awful habit of getting people to open up around him. It was extremely annoying in Ken's opinion. "Anyway, your father was asking for you, something about showing you all the experiments done in Otogakure." Akuma frowned slightly and nodded before walking off. He was stopped mid-step by Ken who grabbed his arm with a serious face. "Look, kid, no matter what you see it really is for the good of Otogakure. Everyone who is being tested on knows the risks and accept them. Hell, me and my clan wouldn't even exist without Otokage-sama's experiments and I probably never would have achieved S-class. Just… trust your father alright? Trust isn't easily achieved in the shinobi world, but he's achieved mine. And that means something, now take care and learn how to protect Otogakure to your fullest okay?"

If Akuma could pick one way to describe how Ken was talking it would be that he was saying goodbye. When he first met Ken, he had been utterly emotionless and cold, but slowly, he started to open up to Akuma and became a precious person to him. He could tell that Ken was open a bit more to others as well and he was glad for that. Now all he had to do was fix Naifu as well… "This is goodbye isn't it?" Akuma asked with a rare sad expression on his face.

He looked up in surprise when he felt a hand ruffle his hand and a small smile, a SMILE, on Ken's face. After making sure the world wasn't ending, he looked at his sensei with a confused look on his face. "No, this isn't goodbye kid, just a see you later. Otokage-sama had told me earlier that since I was S-class I would have to go out and do a few missions for the village. The first one is just a minor A-rank mission somewhere in Earth Country. I'll be back to give you hellish training in no time." With that he vanished in a shunshin that made iron dust float around for a little while. After coughing and clearing his eyes, Akuma looked around and saw that his sensei was gone. However, he couldn't help but smile slightly. It was pretty cool to say that he was trained by two S-class shinobi after all.

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

It had been 4 hours since Project Falcon and Hiruzen Sarutobi was beyond angry. One of their best clans had vanished, just like that and not a single person was able to do anything about it. Kumo shinobi had somehow been able to sneak into the village, kill every main branch Hyuga, turns out there were branches, and removed the seal from the branch family, which he also had no idea about. They had sealed their own family! It was no wonder that they had rebelled and were willing to leave Konoha the first chance they got.

Now, Konoha was with one less clan and had been significantly weakened. There was only one Hyuga member left from the once glorious clan and he could not help but feel sorry for the girl. According to Kakashi, the girl had been found next to the bodies of her father and pregnant mother, left alive for some reason. He couldn't imagine how painful it must have been for her to witness her mother having her throat slit and her father being killed by her own family.

However, he couldn't debrief her because according to the medics she would not wake up for a much longer time, possibly days. She had head trauma, emotional trauma, and had her Byakugan activated before her body was ready apparently. All of this combined would have killed most people, but as it stood, it would only cause memory loss thanks to their medical advancements gifted by Tsunade. This wasn't the best thing in the world but it was all they had, she probably wouldn't remember the last minute or so before passing out so hopefully she still remembered a few things.

At the moment, he was stuck dealing with the backlash of the Hyuga Rebellion as people were beginning to call it so he couldn't personally check up on the poor girl. First he had to select shinobi to look into the details of the rebellion, which would be better if there were any surviving attackers but beggars couldn't be choosers. Next, he would have to receive and look through the reports from the hunter nins sent after the escaping Hyuga members. This would be hard, but they had jounin with an earth affinity so that they could sense shifts in the earth, albeit barely, sent out between Konoha and Kumo, the biggest suspect in the events. Speaking of which, he had sent a letter to the Raikage for an immediate meeting and basically asking 'What the hell man?'.

However, at the moment he had to keep his village from plunging into civil war. Losing the Hyuga Clan at that time was the worst possible time ever. Tensions had been rising between Konoha and the Uchiha Clan and the Hyuga Clan had been one of the main factors keeping the Uchihas from rebelling immediately instead of waiting a few years like he had originally thought they would do. Their original plan was to negotiate when the issue become bigger and kill off the entire clan if negotiations failed since they had another strong clan with a legendary dojutsu. Now, they did not have another dojutsu using clan and the Uchiha were their strongest clan with no others against them.

That was why he had to do something he hated. Unfortunately, he would have to basically give the Uchiha Clan whatever they wanted so they would not start a war. He only hoped Fugaku would be reasonable with his demands… Speaking of whom, his assistant was knocking on his door saying that Fugaku Uchiha was here to see him. With a sigh, Hiruzen told her to let him in and the doors almost immediately opened with a frowning Fugaku on the other side.

He walked steadily into the office, bowed to the hokage, and sat down in one of the seats in front of Hiruzen's desk. They both sat in an awkward silence before Fugaku sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. "Hokage-sama please forgive me, but why exactly am I here?" he asked with a tired tone in his voice.

Hiruzen chuckled bitterly and smoked on his pipe a bit, it was an important meeting but he needed the stress relief. "Right to the point as always Fugaku-san. Fine, I will do so as well, we know about the rebellion plans."

Fugaku did not even seem surprised by this, just resigned. "I have tried to hold the plans back many times, but if things continue like they are now then the Uchiha Clan will rebel in less than 3 years. If you are going to kill us all may I ask you to at least let Shisui, Itachi, and Sasuke live? The first two are very loyal to Konoha to the point where I don't know who they are more loyal to sometimes and Sasuke has nothing to do with this. Please, Hokage-sama, let them live." Then Fugaku did something that Hiruzen never thought he would do, he bowed to Hiruzen so lowly that Hiruzen could barely see him over the desk.

Fugaku on the other hand, had suspicions that the hokage knew about their planned rebellion almost as soon as they had started talking about it a few years ago. Every year, the clan was ready to fight the village, armed and hostile. And every year Fugaku came up with some bullshit excuse to keep them from rebelling for another year. No matter who won, Konoha would be turned into one of the weakest villages in the elemental countries and would be wiped out in a week. He did not want Sasuke to grow up in a place like that, nor did he want Itachi to have to make the choice between his clan and his village. However, now that he knew Hiruzen knew about the rebellion he had no choice but to beg for the innocent ones' lives. He was surprised when he felt a hand under his arm gently picking him up.

He found Hiruzen looking at him with sad eyes and asking him to take a seat. Embarrassed, he did so and watched with wary eyes as the hokage went to look out the window behind his desk. He had his back turned to him, it would be easy to kill him right then and there, but Fugaku knew that would cause more problems than solutions so he waited for the hokage to say something. Hiruzen gave a small smile of approval before breathing out a large puff of smoke. "The Will of Fire burns bright inside of you Fugaku, I can see it in those eyes of yours. To be honest with you, I had wanted to recommend you as hokage along with Minato but since you were a clan head you wouldn't have been able to be hokage for fear of favoritism."

He then turned around and smirked at Fugaku who was watching him with wide eyes before schooling his features into a frown once again. "That is why it surprises me that a man with such a great Will of Fire would turn against the village. Let me be frank with you again Fugaku, I do not like what I am about to do and I wish I didn't have to do it. I wouldn't do it if it was anyone but you and a few others, but I have no choice in the matter."

"After the Hyuga Massacre, as we have now called it, we are now left with one less legendary dojutsu using clan. This would usually be a problem, but one easily fixed since we have another clan similar with a legendary dojutsu to fall back on. However, when that clan is planning a rebellion then it becomes a major problem."

"We were originally prepared to do anything to keep our village safe, even killing your entire clan for the good of the village. However, that option is now long gone so I want to ask you, what are your demands for not rebelling against the village? Make sure you list them all down, for I will not ask again."

Fugaku stared at his hokage with a gaping mouth. Never, NEVER, had he imagined the hokage would actually ask him what his demands were. Even when the Hyuga died, he thought the hokage would simply kill them off as well so that they couldn't weaken the village further. Now, he had to think about what the Uchiha Clan actually wanted to demand, they hadn't even considered this to be an option so they did not even have any demands predetermined.

Well, it would be nice to fix the things that started the rebellion at least. That said, the first thing he would demand would be moving both the clan compound and police station closer to the village center. Then, he would demand Uchiha stands and businesses to be able to make more anywhere in the village instead of just the clan compound so that the populace could get more in tune with the clan. Then, he would demand that the police station gets back all of the power it had lost to the Anbu, who had basically taken over their jobs since the Kyuubi attack, as well as giving it a bit more power. Finally, to further appease the clan, he would demand a few fire style jutsu so that the Uchiha Clan could be even stronger and better protect Konoha.

After he listed off all of his demands, the hokage looked at him for a long moment before taking a long drag from his pipe. "Fine, your demands have been heard and they are acceptable. In a few weeks there will be a new compound near the village center as well as a new police department. You will have complete authority on civilian arrests and crimes as well as having almost complete authority over shinobi arrests and crimes. However, this does not include missing nin which the Anbu are responsible for. You may also have any Uchiha businesses anywhere in the village and I will send you a few fire jutsu scrolls tomorrow. I am glad that we have sorted this whole thing out without bloodshed. Danzo owes me five bucks now."

They both smirked at this and after a little bit more talking, Fugaku left the office to tell his clan the good news. After he left, Hiruzen smirked and looked to a shadowy corner of the room. "Well, what do you think of this turn of events Itachi?" Hiruzen asked in a kind voice. After he said this, a boy not any older than 11 stepped out of the shadows and kneeled to the hokage. He had just joined Anbu, as seen from his white weasel mask and Anbu gear and was well on his way to becoming a captain in a few years. Of course, to become captain an Anbu had to complete at least 150 Anbu missions with a 90% success rate and defeat the previous captain in battle. He had no doubt Itachi could do it however, as he had become Anbu shortly after becoming jounin that very year.

Itachi took off his mask and Hiruzen could see a small smile on his face that showed that he was pleased with this turn of events. "This is the best turn of events that I have ever seen, despite the unfortunate events that came before it," Itachi said, becoming somber near the end. "I had not expected my father to bow to you or to actually ask you to let me, Shisui, and Sasuke to live while he died. That was very… surprising I would say." Itachi had almost given away his position when he heard his father ask his hokage to do that. Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine that Fugaku would put his children, and Shisui but still, above his own clan and self. It seemed he would have to open up more for his father, he was willing to put others before himself and his clan after all and had actually been trying to keep his clan from trying to destroy the village! It was unexpected, and surprising, and Itachi had never respected his father more.

"I agree, to be honest I was afraid he was going to demand the entire village declare the Uchiha are the best. Or an Uchiha being selected as hokage while I step down. Thankfully, all he wanted was his clan restored to its old status with some minor things as an apology for ostracizing them. With this, Konoha may be even stronger than it was before…"

Itachi nodded his head in agreement and Hiruzen smiled at the boy. He was a genius and reminded him so much of Minato he had almost asked Fugaku for a blood test from him and Itachi one time. He was much too young now, but one day… maybe he would be the successor that Konoha needed. "Anyway, you are dismissed Itachi, go back to your clan. Oh, and can you tell me how everyone reacts to the news afterwards?"

"Of course Hokage-sama," Itachi replies before putting his mask back on and using a quick shunshin to get him to the Anbu base to where he can put up his gear. Despite the events of that day, Itachi couldn't help but feel like Konoha was only going to be stronger because of it and he couldn't help but smile. The hokage on the other hand, had to go right back to work. It had been too long since Konoha had a jinjuriki and they couldn't wait any longer for one. Luckily, the Village Hidden in the Waterfall just so happened to have one ripe for the taking…

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

Akuma nervously walked through the dim hallways of the underground area of Otogakure beside his father. What most people did not know about Otogakure was that there were actually two different layers, the first underground layer that held the population, and the second underground layer that held all of the laboratories, experiment facilities, and testing labs. As he looked to the right he saw two men in lab coats writing down on clipboards through a glass window. That was how the entire second layer was set up actually. There were winding hallways with many maps and signs so no-one got lost and countless testing rooms with windows that showed them to the outside world and doors.

The two men had put up their clipboards and one went to get a rat in a cage while the other pulled out a briefcase before pulling a needle out of it. Akuma wondered what they were doing before he looked to a sign next to the door that said 'Radiation Bloodline Experiment'. It seemed like they tested the bloodline injections on animals before humans at least… They inserted the needle into the rat and it seemed to stay still for a few seconds before slowly turning a sickly shade of green. It died soon after and the scientists seemed to sigh before marking it down on their clipboards and getting rid of the body.

"Hm, well it seems like the Radiation Bloodline was a failure. The animal lasted longer than last time so that's a plus at least…" his father murmured before he started to lead the way to where he was taking Akuma again.

Curious, Akuma asked his father what the Radiation Bloodline was supposed to do, to which his father answered. "Well, it was supposed to create a bloodline where a person could control a certain amount of radiation inserted into their body. They would be able to transmit radiation with a single touch, immediately killing the opponent. It is fairly complicated but if finished, we could have one of the strongest clans in existence as long as we make it hereditary."

Akuma nodded slowly as he thought about all of this. He was secretly glad that his father did not just garb some random people on the street and start testing on them, instead using animals first and then prisoners and then volunteers. It was a pretty good setup from what he could tell and there weren't many flaws with it… however this was only one experiment. "What about the Plasma Experiment?" Akuma asked his father as that was the one they were about to see.

His father hummed lowly and put his chin in-between his fingers, his remembering pose. "The Plasma Experiment is one of three categories, the single man test, the prototype, and the group testing. This one is the prototype as we do not know the full extent of it since there hasn't been enough testing done on it. This is because it requires excellent chakra control and we have had maybe two prisoners with enough control to actually test it. If we knew the full extent and what it did, it would probably be a single man test so that others can see the kekkai genkai and then, later, a group test for any people that would want to become part of his/her clan. However, the first person to get the artificial bloodline decided who gets it as well since they would technically be the clan head. Unless they don't want to make a clan in which case someone who does would be clan head and he would be known as part of it."

Akuma nodded slowly at his father's explanation. It seemed like there was a lot of thought put into this and it wasn't just 'Ooh I wonder what would happen if I did this'. "And, who is the test subject this time?" Akuma asked warily and his father actually smiled slightly while licking his lips, he was eager then.

"Recently, a chunin level person named Takumi Yamazaki came to our registration center volunteering for experimentation to become stronger. He is part of the old Yamazaki Clan that hailed from the Land of Lightning and has the potential to use their famed chakra bows that could pierce anything. I am sure you know already how most of the clan members ended up disbanding after the Second Shinobi World War thanks to their clan being targeted for their power. They then split up and little Takumi's family was unlucky enough to decide to go to the Land of Water."

"As you are well aware, the Fourth Mizukage, Yagura, began his bloodline purges a few years ago which convinced Takumi's father, a retired Mist Shinobi, to kill his mother. Luckily, Takumi managed to escape and has been living as a thief to survive, even killing a few poor souls. He wants to prove to Kiri that having a bloodline doesn't make someone a monster so he wants to become as strong as the sannin. He also wants to restore his clan to its former glory."

"Anyway, it seems he has inherited his clan's legendary chakra control which clears him for the Plasma Experiment. We don't know if it will work however so we will be putting him through a few more tests after the original experimentation. What it did was actually a combination of turning chakra into its purest form and then using an amplified fire affinity to heat up the chakra enough to turn it into plasma. To do this, the user had to have a fire and wind affinity, thankfully the boy seems to have a minor fire affinity in addition to his wind one, as well as great chakra control and enough Yin chakra to contain it. We are hoping it works, but it may melt the person from the inside out which none of us want."

Akuma's eyes widened at that last part, but seeing his father's serious expression he nodded. He could tell that his father took no pleasure in death. Well death of his own subordinates anyway. That was what he meant by risks… and he was about to witness a person going through it firsthand. He shivered slightly as he thought about seeing one of his own people killed. It wasn't his first kill by any means, his father had wanted him to experience it in the safety of Oto instead of the dangerous terrain of the outside world. He took no joy from it but he could do it and would do it at least, and that was what matters. He supposed this was also a test for becoming Otokage, in the future he would have to send his people to their deaths and would have to possibly lead the experiments.

It was either he lead them or let Kabuto lead them and even though he thought of Kabuto like a cousin, he took too much joy from pain and death. The other options were Ken, who wouldn't know what science was if it hit him in the head, Guren, who probably wouldn't be interested, or Naifu, his second choice but he felt as if she wouldn't want to do it either. He sighed as he followed his father towards one of the five big rooms that were used for finished tests. Unlike the others, there were no glass windows, only a large set of iron double doors that stood imposingly before him and his father.

Orochimaru did not even falter or slow down as he opened the two doors and walked over to the overview. Akuma walked in after him and couldn't help but feel a little impressed with the area. It was solid stone and the overhand circled around the floor which had about 30 test tables and various tools on tables and counters around the room. On one of the tables there was a man who Akuma assumed was Takumi.

The teenager had long, dark blue hair that went a little beneath his back and Akuma could see that a scientist had put a ponytail band on the table next to him. His hair had a light lime green streak going down the left side of his hair that was easily seen when having his dark hair as a background. His skin looked to be lightly tan and he had a face that just screamed intelligence and seriousness. On the table with his ponytail band was a respirator that was usually found on Rain Shinobi, large goggles with ocean blue lenses, and a long collared white jacket. He was currently wearing a black battle kimono with mottled grey pants and an Oto forehead protector attached to his right bicep.

On another table beside Takumi, Akuma could see shuriken, kunai, sealing scrolls, notes with multiple seals on each that Akuma could recognize, multiple colored food pills or something, and a katana with red silk wrapping around the hilt and hanging off the bottom inside a leather sheath with the same wrappings on top. "Father, is that Takumi?" Akuma asked his father as they both waited for the experiment to begin.

Orochimaru nodded and began to list off all the boy's skills. He was a jounin level in sealing but only chunin level in apothecary, stealth, and ninjutsu. Finally, he was only a genin level with the katana but had seemed to be training himself ever since he got the blade so even that was impressive. Akuma was about to ask more questions when he saw an eager gleam in his father's eyes as he looked towards Takumi. Akuma himself once again looked down and saw two scientists both holding a large syringe, one filled with blue liquid while the other was filled with red liquid.

With a nod towards each other, the two inserted the needles into the veins onto Takumi's arms and pushed down on the syringe, emptying the liquid. Akuma could see the liquid traveling up the teenager's veins and a look of pain appeared on Takumi's face. Akuma's eyes widened, he was awake! He was about to ask his dad why he was awake during this when a loud yell of pain interrupted his thoughts. He looked down quickly and saw Takumi struggling against chakra bonds that he hadn't even known were there while yelling louder and louder as his entire body glowed.

Right when Akuma thought the boy was about to explode, his eyes opened and Akuma saw that his amber eyes were glowing and he made a few hand seals before thrusting his arms out in both directions. "Plasma Style: Plasma Burst!" A large shockwave of purple chakra was sent out in all directions around the boy up to the overview, luckily stopping right before hitting Akuma, Orochimaru, or all the scientists who shunshined next to them.

The boy seemed to be breathing heavily before bringing his arms down and looking at his hands in amazement. He then began to laugh slowly and pump a fist in the air in a show of happiness. "Yes! It worked!" he yelled as he continued to laugh.

"Well, we don't know how much it worked yet. Take the rest of the day off in your quarters and tomorrow we will finish testing," Orochimaru said as he appeared behind Takumi with his tongue hanging out.

Akuma would swear for years that Takumi jumped at least 30 feet in the air when he turned around and saw Orochimaru behind him. "Oh… uh hi, Orochimaru-sama," Takumi said sheepishly as he scratched the back of his head. "Sorry about all that, I was just a bit excited about my new powers."

"Kukuku, no need to worry boy, it's a normal reaction. Ken-kun still denies that he actually danced when it was found out his powers were the strongest."

"Ken…kun?" Takumi asked hesitantly.

"Don't let him hear you call him that or he'll have your head on a pike," Akuma sighed with his nose held between his fingers. That whole event had been a whole new level of stressful. At least now he knew that what his father did wasn't without the tester's consent.

"Who are you kid?" Takumi asked suspiciously as he looked Akuma up and down.

"Oh, excuse my manners," the boy ten years Takumi's junior said sheepishly as he stuck his hand out for a shake which Takumi hesitantly took, and was surprised to see the grip as strong as his own. "The name is Akuma Uzumaki, the future Otokage," Akuma said with a small smirk.

"Hm… well it is a pleasure to meet you Akuma-san," Takumi said as he took his hand back slowly. "However, you still did not answer my question, an experimentation lab is no place for a kid."

Akuma cocked his head in a way that told Orochimaru he was planning something. "Oh? But isn't it not a place for a teenager either?" After Takumi heard this he gained a tick mark above his eyebrow and growled menacingly at Akuma. He hated it when people underestimated him just because of his age, but after looking at Akuma's challenging look he could tell the kid felt the same.

He sighed and nodded his head tiredly, that experiment had taken a lot out of him and it seemed that Plasma Style was not exactly chakra conservative. "Sorry, about seeming to underestimate you Akuma-san, that was not my intention. I was just wondering if you had clearance to be here."

Before Akuma could answer, Orochimaru stepped in. "Yes, actually, he is my son and can go anywhere he wants. He is also about chunin level already if you were wondering."

Takumi was left gaping at this before shaking his head with a laugh and nodding again. The only person who had gotten to chunin level at that young of an age was Kakashi Hatake if he remembered right and he didn't even know how old this kid was. Oh well, it seemed the kid would be interesting at least. "That is pretty cool, we will have to spar one day ne?" he asked with a small smirk. Akuma smirked back and nodded as Takumi walked back to his quarters with a skip to his step.

Akuma smiled slightly at this. Really, how bad could this experimentation thing be if everyone who left looked like that. He was about to thank his father for bringing him there and walk back to his home when some chunin burst into the lab. "Otokage-sama!" he yelled, obviously out of breath.

Akuma heard his father immediately assume his commanding voice that he used towards the shinobi of his village. "Speak! What is it? Is the village under attack?" he asked, listing off the worst scenarios immediately.

"No sir, it's about Project Falcon. Captain Shizuka has returned with a bunch of Hyuga Clan members claiming to be part of the new Taka Clan and that you cleared them for entering the village. The operation was a success and there are no reported ties to Otogakure that can be used against us."

Orochimaru smiled briefly before turning and seeing Akuma's questioning gaze. He sighed and shrugged tiredly, "You're going to find out eventually, might as well tell you now. Something you said a while ago got me thinking about possible ways to bring the Hyuga over to Oto. After a year of planning and scheming and bribing, we were able to kill off the entire Main Hyuga Branch and helped the Branch Family rebel and escape to Otogakure." He saw Akuma's repulsed face at plain murder and sighed. His son still had a long way to go before he was ready to become the Otokage if this sickened him.

"Look, I know you don't like it, but this is for the good of Otogakure. With the addition of the Hyuga Clan, we will have five clans, the Mamorimasu, Fuma, Tetsu, Taranku, and now the Taka, which used to be the Hyuga. We have a legendary dojutsu on par with the Sharingan and now people will think twice before attacking us. This even opens up a variety of opportunities for the village and its shinobi, you see that don't you?" he asked with a sharp edge to his tone. Akuma winced and nodded slowly. His father was right, for the good of the village he had to be prepared to do anything. Besides, they were shinobi, murder wasn't bad for them, it was a way of life. And with that thought, Akuma took the first real step towards being Otokage. Orochimaru could see it in his eyes and smiled slightly before ruffling Akuma's hair and leading the way to see the Taka Clan.

"Come, Akuma-kun, it is time to meet the first person that will belong to your bodyguard squad. His name is Neji Taka, the protégé of the Taka Clan," Orochimaru said, not even needing time to transition from the Hyuga Clan to the Taka Clan. Akuma just thought he was cool like that and followed his father. He was planning on trying to get Neji on his squad anyway, he wanted a team with special powers that could do important missions in the future. He had the Kyuubi and Neji had the Byakugan, now all he had to do was find three more people with special abilities. He had two years to look into it, he would find someone.

As he left the lower level of Otogakure and entered the upper level, he saw multiple new buildings being built. Most importantly to Akuma was a stand known as Ichiraku's Ramen being built with some teenage girl talking to a few construction workers. This meant ramen, and ramen meant that his life had further purpose, which meant that he could have another reason to train, which meant he could eat more ramen, and then the cycle continued from there. It was perfect in Akuma's opinion. In his father's… not so much.

His father seemed to read his mind as he manually turned Akuma's head away from the ramen stand that caused enormous amounts of debt and back to the road ahead. Ignoring his son's pout, Orochimaru led them to a large group of people with pale white eyes and long hair. "Orochimaru-sama!" a man Akuma recognized as the captain of Oto's Anbu, ISAI which stood for Interrogation, Stealth, Assassination, and Interior defense, who was called Captain Shizuka. He did not look very noteworthy except for a claw-like scar that took out one of his eyes he said he got from a chunin exam in Konoha back when he was an Iwagakure shinobi.

"Report captain," Orochimaru said seriously. This was business, there was not that much time for mocking, though Orochimaru always left a little bit of time aside for mocking.

Shizuka nodded before smiling and brushing some black hair out of his lone eye. He would need a haircut soon it appeared, his hair was so long it was starting to even reach his mask. "Mission success sir, no known items have been left tying Oto to what they are now calling the Hyuga Massacre and we have escaped while pinning the blame on Kumogakure."

Orochimaru nodded before smiling himself and turning away from Shizuka to make some inspiring speech or whatever to the Taka Clan. Akuma didn't really pay attention as Shizuka walked up to him and stood stoically beside him. He had always liked Shizuka, he was a kenjutsu specialist as seen from the katana slung around his back and was very skilled with his lightning affinity. He wore a mottled grey cloak that was common for all Oto Isai as well as the grey armor that was very similar to Konoha's Anbu. They also wore masks, just not animal masks, instead they usually wore demon masks to make their foes more wary of them and to increase their opponents' fear. Shizuka's mask was a mountain troll paying heritage to where he was a missing nin from.

"Hello Akuma-kun, what are you doing here, and have you seen Ken around? I heard he made S-class and want to take him out for a few drinks."

Akuma chuckled lightly at the last thing Shizuka said. He had been trying to get Ken to go get drinks with him ever since he saw the stoic guy and saw an easy victim to pay for his drinks. Needless to say, he failed but he and Ken had somehow become good friends. Though, Shizuka has yet to actually get him to go out and get a few drinks. "He's gone on a mission somewhere, he should be back in a few days I think. He'll be a bit swamped with missions though thanks to his new rank so I don't know if he'll be free for those drinks.

Shizuka sighed and pulled down his face mask and pulled out a thin flask of Iwa Whiskey. He was a bit of an alcoholic but had lived to the age of 35 so far, so no-one really said anything. The bottom half of his face was burnt and scarred from a mission gone bad which was the one that caused him to become a missing nin. He and a few comrades from Iwa's Anbu force had been sent out to get rid of a few ninja causing trouble in a village on the country's border. However, this had been a false mission as he was soon captured by his supposed comrades and tortured for information about everything he knew since he was accused by some noble of flirting with his daughter. Instead of siding with their loyal shinobi, Iwa sided with the noble who barely did business with them and left him to die.

That was when he was saved by his precious wife, Tanaki, and nursed back to health. Even with his many scars, both mental and physical, she accepted him and the two fell in love. They had returned to her village and for five happy years he was the defender of the village and even had a son named Ai. Later on, he heard of a new village called Otogakure and he and his family moved there since he missed ninja life and Ai actually wanted to be a shinobi as well.

"You forgot my other question kid," Shizuki laughed as he ruffled Akuma's hair with the hand not holding the whiskey.

Akuma blushed minorly in embarrassment. He sometimes forgot to answer certain questions but he was working on it at least. "Yea, yea, I'm here because I was curious about what the whole Hyuga Massacre thing was as well as the Taka Clan and apparently I am getting a boy named Neji Hyuga on my bodyguard squad."

Shizuki looked at Akuma with curiosity before frowning and taking another swig of whiskey. "Nasty bit of business that was…" he mumbled as he wiped away a few drops from his mouth. "It's enough to make a lesser man quit Isai altogether but not me. Although, I wouldn't be surprised if those guys left soon." He pointed towards three of the Isai shinobi that were sitting against the wall of one of the businesses. They all looked miserable and one was looking at his hands with what he assumed was repulsion.

"The one looking at his hands is new… the other two haven't been in Isai for even a year yet. This was probably the biggest wake up call for them yet. We were forced to kill every Hyuga that was either part of the main family or unwilling to come to Oto. We had to kill children, pregnant women, and defenseless elderly men to complete this mission. However, Oto may be twice as strong because of our efforts, our sacrifices, and because of that I would do it all over again."

Akuma looked at him for a moment, trying to fight down the growing repulsion he felt for all of those events and barely succeeding, before nodding and allowing both of them to fall into an awkward silence. Eventually, Shizuki coughed and spoke up, "Hey, I think I see that Neji kid walking up here. I'll leave you two alone to discuss… bodyguard things or something I don't know. By the way, if you hear Ai ever saying anything about wanting to join Isai, knock some sense into him alright? He's your age so technically it's not frowned upon."

Akuma chuckled with the man as he walked away back home. Usually, he would try and find someone to go drinking with him, but he really loved his family and always went to them right away after a mission. After he washed and was debriefed of course… Akuma turned and saw a young boy walk towards him with a prideful air around him despite the events he undoubtedly witnessed. He wore a white kimono with a bit of dirt on the bottom from walking through a tunnel and hair that fell down to his mid-back as well as a blue bandana tied around his forehead with an Otogakure forehead protector on it. The ends of it were running back behind his head to have two strands flowing behind his back and his eyes were roaming around the area with amazement and wonder.

He could see why he found it amazing, for someone who lived above surface all of their life, an entire village underground with beautiful rock structures and glorious monuments must seem pretty cool. In reality, Neji was more interested in the many seals all over the giant cavern and the genius in building a hidden village underground with anti-ground altering seals. This made it virtually impenetrable even if someone found it since its only weakness was cave ins, which were negated by the seals. On top of that, sieges were impossible as everything could be grown inside of Otogakure if he saw right on his entrance and all the entrances were easily defendable in case of an attack. Infiltrations were also improbable, there was no such thing as an impossible thing in the shinobi world, since there was a rigorous security check at the entrance, even to the new Taka members.

As he looked around more he saw some kid with black hair and three whisker marks on both sides of his face. Hm… if he remembered right then that was the boy that he had been assigned to as a guard. Well, it was best to go ahead and prove he was the stronger ninja so that there wouldn't be any arguments later on. He hated it when people had argued with his dad when he was obviously stronger. It was his fate to be the strongest in the village, even stronger than the one he was guarding.

He walked up to the boy and got into a battle ready stance. The boy just looked at him and raised an eyebrow, inviting him to elaborate. Neji, being Neji, obliged. "Forgive me for this, but I must show you which of us is stronger so that you won't question any of my decisions to protect you in the future. It is my fate to be stronger than you as to defend you from any and all harm."

Without another word being spoken, Neji charged forth towards Akuma with his palm stretched outwards in an attempted jyuken strike. He was surprised when Akuma easily dodge, grabbed his outstretched arm, and sent him tumbling to the ground while still holding his arm. He hadn't even broken a sweat and was holding a kunai at Neji's jugular. "Ah, a believer of fate I see… Well it seems like you misread it. Your fate is to serve under me and follow me in battle, no matter the odds or what fate tells you. From this moment on, I am fate, I am your leader, get stronger and that may change one day." Akuma then pulled Neji back to his feet and looked at him for a moment more before walking off and using a tactic Ken had used on him to teach him. "You're good… for a kid. Come with me and I will help turn you into a shinobi. And then maybe one day you may be able to actually change your fate… Training will begin as soon as you are ready, let's go."

Akuma began walking and then turned back when he noticed Neji still hadn't moved and was staring at the ground in shame. "Come on, I don't have all day kid. If you don't want to be embarrassed, then train. If you want to be a leader, then train. If you want to actually be worthy of being part of my squad then you will need to train. Let's go, I won't ask again." Akuma began to walk off once again and this time, Neji followed.

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

 **AN: And that concludes the Project Falcon and Tournament Arc. Next chapter will be a two year time skip and then some quick hopping around to get the rest of Akuma's squad. I have finally decided on the squad members. They will be Neji Taka, a person from Kiri, a person from Iwa, and a person from Suna. If you can guess who they are then good job. Anyway, this was the longest chapter I have ever written and if you want more chapters this long please tell me in the reviews. Finally, I have finally introduced Antex's OC character, Tamaki Yamazaki, into the story and he will play a few big roles in future missions that Akuma will go on and the Chunin Exams, which I will include in this story obviously. If you have any questions please review them. Don't forget to rate and review also, it is greatly appreciated and I honestly love reading all of the reviews you guys leave. I hope you are still enjoying this story and I hope to see you in the next chapter, see ya!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, or any other anime/manga for that matter. This is just a parody and all rights belong to their specific owners.**

 **AN: Real quick, I want to thank everyone who has supported and read this story up to this point! When I started writing this I never had written any other semi-popular stories and averaged at about 10-20 followers tops. However, thanks to all of your support, I have been able to reach the milestone of 100 followers! I hope you all continue to enjoy this story and my work. Also, if anyone would like to design some cover art for this fanfiction, as I do not like using Google Images, please PM me, I will give you credit in each chapter of the story.**

 **Review Responses:**

 **Some Guy In An Ambulance: Thank you, and I hope that you enjoy what you see later on as well. As for the age thing, it would be very boring in my opinion to show him growing up in Oto as there is not very much to see or write about. Starting the village was not that eventful and they did not have many important missions important to the plot. And that is why I increase his age every chapter, but we are getting to the point where there won't be many more time skips which I am super excited for.**

 **TigrezzTail: Thank you, something I really take pride in is my creativity. And who knows when the other five villages will figure it out, one thing is for certain though, Konoha definitely won't like it. Also, thank you once again for the Uchiha comment. The stigma will wear off eventually, and Sasuke will play a huge role in that later on in the story.**

 **shadow assassin 96: Thank you for the compliments. Also, unfortunately, you were wrong in your guesses. Suigetsu would not have tied into my plans for the story as a part of Akuma's squad and I am assuming Pakura is already dead. However, Suigetsu may play a part in the story further down the line.**

 **zapper25: Thank you for catching that mistake. I would appreciate it if you notified me of any others since I tend to sometimes get lost in thought of other stories and type the wrong thing.**

 **Antex-The Legendary Zoroark: I am very glad that you review on every one of my chapters, it is very helpful and I hope you continue to do it in the future. Thank you for supporting this story and I hope to make better chapters in the future. Anyway, I have a plan for every event that has happened up to this point. I plan to write until the Valley of the End mark of cannon Naruto. Afterwards there will be an epilogue.**

 **KilluaGodspeed: Yes, I know that the sealing is basic knowledge in cannon but I want the people of Konoha to see Otogakure as their enemy in the future. To them, the seal was only to keep the legendary eyes out of enemy hands and that the Main Branch Hyuga were so strong that they just didn't need it. Only the village elders, a few of the clan heads that worked with the Hyuga, and Hinata know the truth of the seal in this story.**

 **1212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212**

Orochimaru sighed as he looked over all of the damned paperwork that had somehow appeared on his desk. He briefly considered saying that only a fake pile of paperwork could appear so quickly, but he squashed that idea down just as quickly. The last time he had said that and caught the work on fire his new assistant, as Naifu had been part of Isai for a while now, had 'somehow' been 'sick' for two weeks, and unable to help him with his paperwork.

Sometimes he really regretted only having smart assistants. Anyway, now he was going over all of the new clans in Oto. There was a clan council meeting in about thirty minutes to welcome the tenth new clan, the Iburi Clan. The other clans, the Tetsu, Fuma, Mamorimasu, Taranku, Shiin, Onpa, Chikyu, Taka, and Doku clans were all going to be there with their clan head representing them.

Most of these clans had joined during the two years after the Hyuga Massacre and were now an important part of Otogakure politics. Unlike Konoha, civilians dealt with only civilian matters while shinobi dealt with only shinobi matters and the Otokage oversaw both. The Shiin Clan had joined in the first month after the Hyuga Massacre, saying that they no longer were able to achieve their ideals without a village and had soon been integrated into Oto. Shiin was the leader of the clan, with a very unoriginal name Orochimaru might add, and was one of Otogakure's more powerful shinobi. He was a jounin level in genjutsu, taijutsu, and was a master with kunai as well as having extremely high endurance.

The rest of his clan was mostly bandits, but Shiin had promised that his clan would soon be known as one of the strongest non-bloodline clans and Orochimaru allowed him to keep the clan title. The next clan to join had been the Onpa Clan who were now considered to be one of Otogakure's best clans. They had lived in caves and underground areas for years after being persecuted in the Land of Earth thanks to false information and after a few generations, their eyes were now useless. To make up for this, every member of the clan was able to see their surroundings through both vibrations in the ground and with their ability to sense chakra. They were also able to summon the bats to help them fight and see shinobi and people in the village had quickly learned that it was very difficult to sneak up on them.

The Chikyu Clan had joined next along with the Doku Clan next and had been allies for some time before then. The Doku Clan was originally from Yugakure before the Land of Sound and Land of Hot Water combined and the Doku Clan decided to leave for Otogakure instead of staying in a soon to be tourist spot. They were experts with poisons rivaling even those in Sunagakure and were widely known about their policies of ever using a weapon without poison on it. They were some of the best assassins across the land and had already put their skills to use within the village.

The Chikyu Clan had become allies with the Doku Clan way back during the Warring Clans period after a political marriage. The Chikyu Clan were very talented with the earth affinity, enough so that they didn't need hand seals to use earth style jutsu and were widely feared because of this. This caused many people to try and hatch up plots to destroy the clan, however shortly after they revealed their plans they would mysteriously die from a heart attack or some rare disease and be unable to carry it out. Likewise, whenever a large force moved towards the Doku Clan, they would be stopped by shinobi wielding earth so easily it was like they were throwing kunai.

Now, they would have the Iburi Clan joining them. The Iburi Clan was a clan in the Land of Fire that had been hidden underground for a long while. They had the unique ability to turn their bodies into smoke, but it was not always willful and a gust of wind could blow them away. For the past year, Orochimaru had been developing a seal that could allow them to be able to transform at will so that they would not randomly transform and get blown away, killing them.

He had worked hard along with his head scientists to develop that seal, but he did not regret it as he now had a clan with great potential and found a new genius. Yoidesu Doku was the eldest son of the Doku Clan head, Tenno Doku, and was thought of throughout his clan as their smartest mind. He had developed countless poisons, new tactics they used on multiple occasions, and was promoted to head Oto scientist after his help with the Iburi Clan seal. However, he had refused to be the Doku Clan head many years before then and now, at 37 years old, he has already chosen his path in life. Instead, his younger sister, Kobura, was decided as the heir at 30 years old.

Orochimaru shook his head to clear his thoughts of clan matters and looked out the window he installed in his office. His office was truly his own now, with snake statues looking at him sitting at his desk made out of Fire Country wood. There were bookshelves and filing cabinets filled to the brim all around the walls of his oval shaped office and there was a large window bigger than Orochimaru right behind his desk. It was amplified with seals and chakra so nothing could pierce it, but it sure made his Isai nervous.

He chuckled at this and began to turn his many thoughts towards Akuma and his newest comrade, Neji Taka. It had been two years since Neji's public embarrassment and recruitment into Akuma's squad and he could say without a doubt that he was chunin level. Sure, he was jounin in taijutsu thanks to all the one on one training he received, but he was still learning everything else. Akuma also seemed to really love 'training' Neji in his stamina and endurance as they sparred every week or so. The first time, Neji did not even last five seconds but he could now last a few minutes thanks to him using his brain.

If Orochimaru wasn't mistaken, which he rarely is, Neji now was at least genin level, and chunin in some areas, in all of the things he had been taught, well except taijutsu. He was taught stealth, archery, taijutsu, tracking, medical jutsu, poisons, and a few earth ninjutsu. The boy had actually thanked Ken with tears in his eyes once he taught him the Hiding Like a Mole Jutsu. Before he learned that, he was only able to fight Akuma for about 40 seconds at most. Unless it was taijutsu only, he had lasted much, much longer when the two boys did that.

Speaking of Akuma, Orochimaru couldn't help but smirk as he thought of the seven year old jounin. He was the youngest jounin to ever live, beating Kakashi Hatake's old record by a whole four years. However, he was high jounin level in ninjutsu while low jounin level in taijutsu and with a few weapons. Everything else varied from low chunin to high chunin level, though it was more than enough to defeat his comrade and a few ninja who would cross his path.

Orochimaru's good mood about thinking of his son's progress did not last long as he thought about how fast he was growing up. In fact, the very next day would be the day that the two went off to find the rest of his squad. Orochimaru had already selected his subordinates, with most being from Oto. These would be Kidomaru Taranku, Tayuya Furuto, Jirobo Chikyu, and Sakon/Ukon. The last, two?, had a recessive bloodline that allowed them to break their molecules on a molecular level and infiltrate someone else's body. This also allowed them to live within one another while still being two separate beings.

They had refused to be tested on to distribute their bloodline to others, which he reluctantly accepted. Now all he needed was a leader for them all as he would not be able to go around with them like Akuma would be able to. However, while he hadn't actually recruited anyone for Akuma, he had made a list of people that would be good for being a comrade. There were a few from each country, including Otogakure, and he was sure that Akuma would be able to make his choice soon. He stopped thinking and looked at the clock above one of his cabinets and sighed sadly. It seemed like it was time for the meeting… oh well, maybe it would be interesting.

121212121212121212121212121212121211212121212121212121212121212121

Ken moved silently through the dangerous canyon, not making any noise as he moved through the middle of it at high speeds, as is befitting of an Isai captain. He was on a mission in the Land of Fangs to assassinate a noble of the land to raise tensions between them and the Land of Claws even more. They had narrowly avoided a war not too long before and this was not good for Orochimaru's plans. Before they had avoided the war, Iwa shinobi had been hired by both sides to fight for them since the Land of Stone was bordering both countries to the right. This caused the shinobi of the village to go to the border furthest away from Oto, enabling them to steal from Iwa techniques, weapons, gold, and many other things while pinning it on other countries.

They mostly blamed it on Taki, Ishi, Ame, and Kusa, and because of that, tensions between them were rising more and more. Ken was the main person sent on those types of missions and since he mainly used weapons, there were no unique traits that could tie Oto to any of them. "What you thinking about Dragon-taicho?" Shizuka asked with his mountain troll mask covering his entire visage. Ken himself wore a mask that appeared to be a dragon with many horns all over it.

"Just about our mission Troll-san, are you sure that we left no evidence behind?" Ken asked in a hushed tone as they sped back to their country. This would be the hardest part as they would have to go through The Land of Stone, The Land of Waterfall, and The Land of Iron while killing any witnesses.

"Yes sir," Shizuka said as he pointed back to a man with a thunder bird mask. "Thunder Bird-san checked out the room with his Byakugan before we left, he said that there was no evidence whatsoever," Shizuka said with a bit of pride in his voice.

He seemed like he was about to say something else when the Taka Clan member spoke up. "Seven Iwa shinobi are approaching to the right. There seems to be five chunin level shinobi and two jounin level ones. I am assuming that they are patrolling and there is a sensor in their squad."

Ken nodded seriously at the information and silently agreed with his squad mate. The only way they would have found them is if they had a sensor on their squad, though it seemed like the sensor wasn't a very good one if they only brought two jounin and five chunin. "Very well, we will test that last theory. Everyone go underground and await my signal." Ken's two comrades nodded before they all did a few hand seals and hid underneath the ground.

They waited for about a minute before the seven shinobi landed where they last were. Ken's eyes widened slightly when he saw one of the Tsuchikage's two sons, Yama Kamizuru. 'Killing him would work greatly in our favor if we could pin it on either Fang or Claw, but we would have to ensure there are no survivors. I suppose I will have to use that technique,' Ken thought morbidly. He clasped his hands together in a seal and began to concentrate.

A few seconds later and one of the chunin looked up with fear in her eyes, oh well, it was too late. "Get awa-," she started but was cut off by Ken's deep voice echoing off the walls of the canyon.

"Iron Style: Senbon Devastation," he said while jumping out of the ground above the Iwa shinobi and pointing his hands towards them. This jutsu made an iron senbon shoot out from every skin pore on Ken's hands and made thousands of the weapons rain down upon his enemies. It took about two-tenths of his chakra and a large amount of concentration, but it was good for taking out shinobi groups like the ones below him.

Yama scowled and made some hand seals with his large hands while his black eyes looked at Ken beneath his red hair fearfully. "Earth Style: Mud Wal-," he gasped as he was hit with a few shuriken from the back and began to look behind him to see his sensor and the other jounin both on the ground with shuriken in them as well.

"Well, ja ne!" the one with the troll mask said as he leapt up onto the canyon walls to watch the show. The enemy shinobi had no time to react as the senbon blanketed over them and punctured every inch of their bodies. Ken leapt down soon afterwards and stuck his hand out to reabsorb all of the iron he had lost, regaining a small amount of his chakra.

"Thunder Bird-san, will you grab Yama? Troll-san you will carry the other jounin until we reach a resting point, understand?" Ken asked as he picked up the sensor that had caused them trouble.

"Yes sir, but what was the point in all of that?" Shizuka asked as he picked up the jounin he had killed before. He wasn't that hard to kill actually, but he caught him by surprise so who knew how strong he would have actually been.

Ken looked at him in surprise for him not knowing then shaking his head in exasperation. Shizuka knew why, he was just bored so he was making conversation. He usually finds himself wondering just why he was friends with the guy. Oh yea, cause no-one else liked him that much, bummer. "Well, when we get to a place we can stop and hide out in, we can send a messenger hawk to Orochimaru-sama telling him of this new development and then we can forge a document saying that either the Land of Claws or the Land of Fangs found out about Iwa helping their enemy and can jump start a war. I'd say we tell Iwa that Fang did it so that Ishi will join in the war as they are Fang's allies. This will make Iwa go to their left border even more, slowing us to steal from them even more. All in all, it would be a gain to our village," Ken explained while they moved on and the Taka member activated his Byakugan to make sure no-one was close enough to hear. After they made sure of that, Shizuka made a few hand seals and used a fire jutsu to burn away the bodies of the enemy shinobi.

Ken was still curious about who the Taka Clan member really was. After four months of working with the man he had never learned who he actually was. He usually worked with ten different people, and he knew who they all were except for the Taka member. Ken even called him Taka-san when they were off of missions since there was no-one nearby and Thunder Bird-san was really a mouthful. Whoever thought that making their masks mythical creatures obviously did not think about how long the names would be…

"Oh, well that makes sense. Let's get to a cave the-," he was once again cut off by Taka-san's yell of 'duck!' and he had barely dodged a large sword beheading him. He leapt away from the offending attacker and his eyes widened by who it was. "Juzo Biwa… the Demon of the Hidden Mist…" Shizuka muttered while still being wide eyed.

"Correct, I expect nothing less from an Otogakure Isai…" Juzo muttered as he looked at the three of them. He was a tall and slender individual about as tall as the sword he held in front of him, the Executioner's Blade. He wore a strange black cloak with red clouds in various places on it as well as bandages that covered his chin, neck, and ears. He also had red markings around his jaw and had a cross shaped scar on his right cheek as well as a Kirigakure forehead protector with a slash running through it. He also had no eyebrows and had short, spiky hair. He then grinned with a smile that just screamed bloodlust and looked right at Ken. "We are here to do business with you Ken Tetsu. But first, we have to test your abilities of course…"

"We…?" Ken muttered before his eyes widened and he turned towards his comrades. "Scatter!" he yelled as they all leapt in different directions just as a thunderbolt struck where they used to be and another man appeared next to Juzo.

"Aw, they stayed still… I could have held such a nice funeral for them…" the man said as he looked towards his enemies as well. He had blue eyes with a darker ripple around the pupil and waist length green hair with two bangs falling on his cheeks on each side of his face. He had dark, full lips that were smiling in a manner that was not completely sane and wore the same cloak as his partner, though Ken could still see the bandages that ran from his neck down. He also had a weird pack thing on his back that had three red stripes on it and had a hood on his cloak that he covered his head with. In each hand he held one of the twin swords, Kiba, that were supposed to be the sharpest swords ever made.

"I never did understand your obsession with funerals," Juzo smirked as he held up his sword in a fighting stance.

"Yea, yea, I wish I could give you a damn funeral…" the man muttered as he too put his swords in a fighting stance.

Ken's eyes widened just as Shizuka spoke up again. "That man is Raiga Kurosuki, the Thunder of the Hidden Mist. Great, so we have two S-class missing nin to deal with…" **(AN: I am making Raiga a little stronger here than he was in the anime.)** Ken and Taka-san frowned as they got in fighting stances along with Shizuka after dropping the bodies they held behind them. Shizuka unsheathed his katana and channeled lightning chakra down it, Ken made blades appear out of his forearms underneath his hands, and Taka-san got into a Jyuken fighting pose.

"Ah, it looks like they are all ready to fight. I was expecting only Ken-san to actually fight us, but at least we can get more blood this way…" Juzo smiled with his pointed teeth as he stared Ken down.

"If you don't mind, I think I'll take the Hyuga and the wanna be swordsman," Raiga smirked with his pointed teeth as his two opponents bristled for different reasons. Shizuka was angry because he had spent years training with a sword while Taka-san was furious at the reminder that he was a Hyuga member.

"That's fine with us," Shizuka said as Taka-san nodded next to him.

Ken looked at the two and spoke up, "Fine, but be careful. He may be one of the weaker members of the Swordsmen of the Mist but he's not S-rank for no reason…" His two comrades nodded before they allowed Raiga to lead them away from Juzo. "Now then…" Ken muttered as he dropped down in a mini squat with his arms settled in a cross guard. "Let's get started…"

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

It was a big day for Akuma, Neji knew that. That day would be the day that he would choose his other three subordinates for his squad out of a large pool of potential ones. They wouldn't go out to recruit them until the next day, but this was the first time he ever really chose something important for himself. It was big, and he understood that, but why could he just not. Be. Still?

"Akuma-taicho, will you PLEASE stay still for five seconds?" Neji asked while his eyebrow twitched continuously. He looked quite different than he did when he came to Otogakure. He now wore a mottled gray kimono shirt with loose sleeves with matching pants and a purple apron like cloth tied around his waist. He also wore an Otogakure shinobi forehead protector and had two wrist blades hidden in his sleeves for when he did not want to use chakra for his taijutsu.

Akuma seemed to not pay attention to him as he continued bouncing in his seat. Did he mention that the chair squeaked like a mouse that was high on every drug in the world after drinking a few beers? Eventually Neji could not take it anymore and knocked Akuma in the back of the head causing him to fall to the floor. To his credit, he managed to look completely innocent when Akuma glared at him. He huffed and rubbed the back of his, now sore, head. "Ow, ow, ow what was that for Neji?" Akuma asked in a childish voice.

If Neji had not been around Akuma for two years, he might've actually believed that Akuma was a child. However, they had both learned that they both were not really children anymore after the things they have seen. Akuma saw experimentation on human life and lived around Isai level shinobi all of his life while Neji was basically a slave in his own family and saw all of their gruesome deaths. Neji shrugged at his captain and said with a completely innocent face, "I don't know. Fate told me 'watch this' and next thing I knew, you were on the ground. Fate is such an interesting thing don't you think?" Neji smirked at Akuma.

"I swear, you're always 'Fate this, Fate that'. If I didn't know any better I'd say that you were going to end up naming your kid Fate." At Neji's thoughtful look Akuma quickly added, "Don't even think about it. As soon as I become Otokage I am going to make it a law that you cannot name a child Fate."

Neji frowned and huffed at his captain in annoyance. He didn't really believe in fate anymore, no that was a lie. He believed in it, he just didn't think that he was able to see it anymore. He was so arrogant to think that, and he was going to try not to do that again. "Of course I'm not going to name my kid Fate. I'm going to name him, or her, Unmei."

Akuma thought about that before he yelled, or said loudly since he WAS in the waiting room for the Otokage, "That's the same thing!"

Neji smirked superiorly at his captain, "Well you didn't outlaw it so it is completely different."

"N-O you aren't naming your kid that."

"Ugh, as you wish captain. That is, if you beat me in a shogi match," Neji smirked at his captain who scowled and looked away with a pout. Neji, while not as strong as Akuma, had a better mind for strategy and had won every shogi match the two had played. Akuma wasn't really mad about it or anything, he just thought it reinforced his theory about the Byakugan being able to read minds, despite Neji's protests.

"If you didn't read my mind, maybe I could actually win…" Akuma began with a smirk.

"For Kami's sake, I do not read your mind Akuma-taicho! Sometimes I doubt there is anything to read…" Neji muttered.

"Oi! What was that?!" Akuma yelled, for real this time, as he got up and growled at Neji who did the same.

"Quiet! The Otokage will never see you two if you keep it up!" Orochimaru's assistant, Sheru Mamorimasu, yelled out loudly as she pointed towards the two 'hooligans'.

"But you're yelling too Sheru-chan," Akuma helpfully pointed out.

"Well, I can do that since I work here! Anyway, just wait a few more minutes and Otokage-sama will be able to see you," she said tiredly. Akuma always found a way to tire her out somehow, and if he wasn't so cute it would be annoying.

"Okay, thanks Sheru-chan!" Akuma said with a smile as he sat next to an embarrassed Neji.

She sighed before getting back to work and ignoring the brats. No matter how many times she told Akuma to call her Sheru-san, he just wouldn't listen. That was annoying no matter how cute he was. Akuma and Neji waited a few more minutes before Akuma started getting restless again and Neji had to keep himself from dealing with it in the same was as he did earlier. Thankfully, he didn't have to do that as a tired looking Orochimaru walked into the Otokage Tower. No matter how many times he went to them, Clan Formation Meetings always tired him out. There was a ton of haggling about possible favors, clan secrets, territorial issues, authority issues, and a lot of other things.

Thankfully his two allies in these meetings, Shirudu Mamorimasu and Hanzaki Fuma, the leaders of the Mamorimasu and Fuma clans, were there to support him. Shirudu was a 56 year old man who was credited with leading his clan out of Kirigakure. They were hunted down until there were only a few dozen of the members who were able to construct the strongest barriers ever seen in Kiri and when Oto was constructed he joined as soon as he could. The man had shaggy grey hair that reached his shoulders and had many wrinkles on his face. He usually closed his eyes and used his sensory skills to guide him around, but when he opened them they were a deep blue comparable to the sea. He wore a dark red robe with the Mamorimasu Clan symbol on the back of it, a sea turtle shell with waves crashing into it, and walked around on a wooden cane that many youngsters had discovered was very strong.

Hanzaki was Orochimaru's other 'ally' in these meetings and was actually the oldest living sibling of Ken Tetsu. He had short green hair and had kind brown eyes that betray his intentions of helping everyone through sunshine and rainbows. No, seriously, he told Orochimaru that was his goal once. Even though he had many drinks in him at the time, there was no excuse for that kind of talk. He wore mottled grey silk clothes that allowed him to move freely with the Fuma Clan symbol on his left arm, a Fuma Shuriken over a white background. Underneath these clothes, he wore mesh armor and always had two Fuma Shuriken on his back, even during formal meetings. However, despite his kindness, he was a very strong shinobi who earned the name 'Bladed Whirlwind' for his skills in battle with his shuriken, chakra strings, and wind jutsu.

The two helped Orochimaru greatly since Shirudu was a pessimist and Hanzaki was an optimist so he had two separate opinions to help him find a compromise. Anyway, Orochimaru shook his head to focus on the task at hand. Akuma was in front of him talking about being excited to find out about his new subordinates while Neji looked exasperated and Sheru looked annoyed. Ah, so Akuma and Neji had gotten into an argument again, nothing new.

"Hello Akuma-kun, you seem a bit excited today," Orochimaru said with a smile that gave everyone in the room chills, well except for Akuma of course.

"Well of course I am father! I finally get to pick out my squad! It's going to be the best squad in the world!" Akuma chattered excitedly as he continued to hop in place.

Orochimaru chuckled as he rubbed Akuma's hair again and led him and Neji to his office. "Thank you for watching over them Sheru, your assistance is appreciated." Sheru nodded and moved some of her long red hair back into its ponytail. Orochimaru still thought that she had some Uzumaki heritage somewhere in her, but she neither confirmed or denied it so he had no idea. He knew she found that amusing for some reason, not telling him things he was curious about.

He sighed and continued to lead the two boys to his office before sitting behind his desk when he got there and pulling a book out of a drawer inside of it. "I have found about 50 people who seem to have unique abilities, are around your age, have reason to join you, and aren't 'evil' I suppose…" Orochimaru said as he listed off Akuma's requests to narrow down the list of people.

"Great! Neji, come here and help me pick some out," Akuma said with a smile as he began flipping through pages. Neji sighed, but did not refuse him as they continued to look through the pages.

"What about this Suigetsu guy?" Neji asked as they looked at his picture in the book.

"No, sure he's strong but his constant need for water would make him kind of a nuisance. Besides, it says here that he'll probably betray us just to get some swords."

"Hmm," Neji hummed as he looked over the book entry again. "Well in his defense, that is part of his clan and his brother WAS one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist…"

"Doesn't matter, next one. Ooh, what about this Haku girl? It says here that she had to kill his family recently, poor girl. Come on, she looks like she needs a new family to help her out…"

Neji sighed and nodded his head in approval, though he didn't know why his captain was asking him if he approved. It was his choice after all. This went on for a while more and eventually they settled on two other people, despite Neji's insistence that they should recruit that Komai guy from Lightning Country. One of the other two was a young boy named Deidara who had stolen his village's forbidden technique and ran off because they did not appreciate his 'art' and actually feared him for it. The other one was the son of the Kazekage named Gaara who was feared by the village for being a jinchuuriki. Neji did not agree at first since he doubted he would defect, but Akuma said they just had to fix his seal to help him sleep, since it said he couldn't in the book, and promise the boy a better life in Otogakure.

Orochimaru smiled as he looked at Neji and Akuma continue to argue about his choices. Neji might not have gotten it, but Orochimaru saw that Akuma clearly cared about the opinions of those that would get affected by what he was about to do. That was a good quality in a leader. He just wished that they didn't argue so loudly…

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

Shizuka's eyes widened as he had to leap away as Raiga suddenly stopped and slashed at him. He soon regained his composure and entered a defensive stance with Taka-san right beside him. The two looked at their opponent and noticed he was… crying? "*Sniff* this is such a sad day… Two more people will have to leave this world just because they were in my way. Don't worry you two, I'll be sure to give you both a proper funeral when I'm done…" He smiled at the last part and got ready to charge the two Isai agents.

"I will take care of this Troll-san," Taka-san said as he activated his Byakugan. He gasped slightly as his eye bloodline deactivated and he fell to his knees at the sudden shift. He was unprepared for Raiga as he charged with his swords prepared to decapitate the Taka member. Shizuka did not waist time as he jumped in front of Taka-san and blocked the twin swords with his own katana which had lightning chakra channeled down it.

Raiga smirked and leapt back with his swords loosely held by him. "Hmm, interesting. So your lightning affinity is strong enough to combat mine? However, that won't be enough to keep deflecting my strikes like that, especially when that Hyuga over there is useless…"

His smirk was erased when he saw Taka-san stand up. His eyes widened momentarily when he saw blades pop out of Taka-san's grey robes that went over his hands instead of under them like Ken's had. They looked similar to the weapons many Iwa shinobi had used back in the Third Shinobi World War, except he saw the blades become encompassed by lightning chakra and his eyes widened, they seemed to be doing that a lot lately.

"I am not a Hyuga…" Taka-san began while he took off his mask to stare at the enemy with hate-filled eyes. Taka-san had a very stern, but young, face with a few scars on it and it was twisted up in hatred. "My name is Gurifin Taka, an Isai of Otogakure, and the one who will kill you!" he yelled out in hatred. Shizuka was momentarily shocked by who the young man was. He had heard the name Gurifin Taka all around the village. They said that he was a genius with lightning style attacks as well as taijutsu and was one of the members accepted into the Elite Taka Branch. However, he was only accepted in there recently so he had not mastered all of the abilities of the Taka.

Shizuka was knocked out of his shock by Gurifin rearing back and shooting his hand forward, with his blade still covered in lightning chakra. "Lightning Taka Style: Vacuum Lightning Palm!" he yelled as a large burst of air shot towards the enemy with lightning racing down in various places on it and meeting in the center. It raced towards Raiga who grinned and channeled lightning down his own weapons.

He raised them and a ball of lightning formed in between the two swords. "Lightning Style: Ball of Lightning!" he yelled as he launched his own attack towards Gurifin's as they met in the middle of the distance between the two. The two attacks seemed to fight each other for a few moments before Gurifin's overpowered Raiga's and continued on towards the man. Raiga smiled maniacally before channeling lightning down his swords again and destroying the remainder of Gurifin's attack with a cross slash. However, this left him open, as was seen when Shizuka attacked him while he wasn't paying attention.

Or at least, it appeared like he wasn't paying attention when, in reality, he had jumped back as soon as Shizuka jumped forward, despite him not making any sound. "Ah, ah, ah that wasn't very nice Troll-san. Speaking of which, you are the only person who's name I don't know. It wouldn't be very good if I couldn't say your real name at your funeral…" Shizuka growled at this part, he was really starting to get annoyed by the man's constant talk of funerals.

To demonstrate this, Shizuka stabbed his sword into the ground and began to preform hand seals. However, he didn't get to finish as Raiga aimed his sword towards him and shot out a thin beam of lightning. Shizuka scowled and barely dodged the strike before picking up his sword and deflecting the next beam. "Heh, heh, you can't deflect them all…" Raiga chuckled as he shot a beam every second towards him with one sword and at Gurifin with the other.

The two continually deflected until they decided that it wasn't getting anywhere and went underground. "Oh, ho, ho so you two are going to save me the trouble of having to dig your graves? How…sweet of you. It is such a shame two people so good will have to die," he began to cry again even as he drew his two swords together and sent a large electrical current into the sky. Clouds soon gathered around where he shot and soon the entire area was below dark grey clouds. "Lightning Style: Fangs of Lightning," he said in a sad voice as he looked around the earth where the two Isai shinobi hid. They soon jumped out of their hiding spots as a lightning bolt struck where they each were.

"What the hell…" Shizuka muttered as he held one of his arms that was burned by the lightning bolt. He could only watch as another bolt of lightning lanced towards him. He closed his eyes, prepared to die, but then opened them after two seconds of not feeling any pain and widened them when he saw that Gurifin had managed to get in front of him and deflect the lightning with his blades.

"We need to go on the offensive Troll-san. If things continue like this anymore, we will be defeated soon."

"Well that is very correct Gurifin-kun," Raiga smiled as two lightning bolts shot from the sky towards Gurifin.

"Kaiten!" he yelled as he spun and activated his technique right before the attack hit, protecting him.

"Oh? I thought only Main Branch Hyuga knew that technique. I guess losers like the Branch Family can learn them after all…" Raiga smiled as Gurifin growled and charged. Raiga and Gurifin both clashed with their blades with Raiga deflecting all of Gurifin's wild slashes and stabs before a lightning bolt struck down in-between them both and Raiga shot two lightning streams towards Gurifin. He dodged one, but the other hit him in the side and caused him to double over in pain. Raiga charged and was about to behead Gurifin again, but Shizuka shunshined in front of him and slashed with his lightning chakra, making a thin cut appear over Raiga's chest, through his cloak.

Raiga scowled and leapt back before shooting a few thunderbolts from the sky towards Shizuka. Shizuka quickly grabbed Gurifin and shunshined a few feet behind Raiga before slashing at his back. Raiga immediately turned around when Shizuka shunshined and they both slashed at the same time. The only difference was, Raiga only slashed with one and he had two. Shizuka was reminded of this forcibly as his sword arm was brutally cut off. "Ah!" Shizuka screamed as he shunshined next to Gurifin with a hurt arm. He was surprised to see Gurifin finish forming hand seals with his side barely healed.

"Lighting Style: Lighting Dragon Jutsu!" he yelled as he put the seal in front of his mouth and screamed to shoot out a giant dragon's head made of lightning shot towards Raiga. He growled as he put his swords in a cross guard, as he couldn't use his Lightning Strike Armor because of Ranmaru, and was thrown off into the distance thanks to the power of the attack.

"*Cough* *Cough* Here, I can stop the bleeding but I can't heal it all. We need to get out of here, do you know where the bodies are?" Gurifin asked as he healed Shizuka and grabbed his mask before putting it on with difficulty. Shizuka grabbed him with his free arm, as he was the one with the most chakra left, and shunshined the two to where they left the bodies. When they got there, they did not see either Ken or Juzo so they grabbed the two jounin and left the sensor for later.

"Okay, we got them. Grab onto me and I'm going to shunshin us as far away as possible. It will be up to you to find us a place to hide, alright?" Shizuka asked as he grabbed Yama and Gurifin grabbed the other jounin weakly before grabbing onto Shizuka and the two shunshined away.

Raiga showed up a moment later before looking around and not seeing any of them. "Damn it!" Raiga shouted as a few scattered lightning bolts struck the ground.

"Calm down, Raiga-san, we will get them next time…" a young voice said quietly to the angry man. The two really did make a good team, if it wasn't for Ranmaru the Isai members might have won thanks to the Byakugan and shunshining behind him, but thanks to Raiga's strength and his eyes, they won by a large margin.

"Fine… you're right. It's just kind of sad that we won't be able to give them a proper funeral…" Raiga muttered while tearing up again.

"Don't worry master, next time we find them, we will give them the biggest funeral anyone has ever seen…"

121212121212121212121212121212212121212121221212121211212121212212

Ken watched his opponent warily as he led him away from Raiga's battle. Eventually, Ken noticed the other man getting ready to attack and brought up his wrist blades to block the giant sword swinging towards him. It made a small crater in the ground, but his chakra enhanced weapons were able to withstand the impact. "Heh, heh, that's interesting," Juzo said as he continued to push down on his weapon with both hands and Ken's weapons began to groan from the strain. "Not many weapons can withstand the full force of my sword, especially not little wrist blades. However, yours have been able to stay together. Up to this point anyway…" Juzo laughed as he shifted how he held the sword and twisted, launching Ken to the side and chipping one of his blades.

Ken scowled and reabsorbed the blades into his skin before forming another weapon. "You're strong, but I did not achieve the title of S-rank for nothing…" Ken said while he spun his naginata. Outside he looked calm, if not a little angry, but on the inside he was thinking of anything that could help him. He could use three different types of elemental jutsu, earth, wind, and fire. Wind was actually his natural affinity while earth was a side effect of his bloodline and he trained his fire affinity constantly until he could use it well.

Ken was snapped out of his thoughts forcefully as Juzo once again slashed at him from overhead. Ken blocked with the naginata, then used the offending weight to slide it off of his spear-like weapon and slice Juzo's head off. He frowned in disappointment when they form of the man turned into water. Ken looked around the area and quickly realized that he was at a disadvantage with the stream going through that part of the canyon.

"I see you have finally noticed…" Ken heard a voice say on the opposite side of the canyon as about ten more clones came out of the stream and leveled their swords at Ken. "However, it is a bit late to do anything." Eight clones charged towards Ken with their swords while two others began to form hand seals on top of the stream.

Ken's eyes widened and he did a few hand seals of his own before effacing open palms towards the clones. "Iron Style: Iron Senbon Jutsu!" he yelled as a few dozen senbon shot out of his hands towards the enemy. Most of the ones with swords were able to block the ones sent at them, but the ones forming hand seals had no defense and dissolved after being hit. Ken quickly picked up the naginata he set down and spun it to distract his enemy before ducking under a slash and cutting off the clone's leg, dispelling it.

"Hm, you're better than I thought you'd be with that staff…" Juzo said offhandedly as Ken quickly dispelled two more water clones. "However…" Juzo began as he shunshined down in front of Ken and his two remaining water clones jumped next to him. "This may be the end…" he said as all three of the Juzos began to form hand seals. Ken's eyes widened at this and he channeled wind chakra down his weapon before throwing it at the real Juzo. However, the one to the right tried to block it with his sword and body, though it only slowed it down, then the one on the left tried the same thing and got dispelled as well. It was still going, though much slower, but Juzo simply leaned to the right, away from the spear, though he got a thin cut on his left cheek thanks to the leftover wind chakra.

He growled just as he finished his last seal. "Water Style: Multi-Water Dragon Jutsu!" he yelled as multiple water dragons came out of the stream and shot towards Ken.

Ken growled as well before performing a few hand seals. "Earth Style: Mud Wall Jutsu," he ground out before spitting out a large amount of mud that formed a wall. He quickly went underground with his Hiding Like A Mole Jutsu and waited for his opponent's jutsu to be over.

Juzo frowned as his water dragons broke through the new mud wall with minimal difficulty and continued on until they formed deep craters in the canyon wall. He couldn't see Ken anywhere, so he was either hiding somewhere or knocked into the canyon wall. Juzo cautiously walked onto the ground and looked around the area for anywhere Ken might hide. 'Not left, right, forward, up, so he must be…' Juzo thought calmly. "Underground!" he yelled as he lifted his sword to cut into where he thought Ken was. However, he was too late as a hand gripped his leg and pulled him underground before a kunai was thrown into his neck.

"Earth Style: Headhunter Jutsu complete," Ken said blankly as he looked down at Juzo's scowling face. Before Juzo could say anything, Ken shot a kunai out of his palm right into his skull. He then turned around and began to walk away. For an S-rank shinobi, the man wasn't all that strong, well at least he got a small challenge out of hit. Before he took another step his instincts were screaming at him to move and he jumped to the right. His eyes widened considerably as a sword cut through a quarter of his right arm with Juzo staring at him with a blank face.

"What the hell? I killed you!" Ken scowled at the man as iron filled his wound so no more blood would fall out of his arm.

"If you really thought that an S-rank shinobi would go down that quickly then you don't deserve your rank," Juzo said with a disappointed look on his face. "This is not who I was promised, it seems like I won't be recruiting you after all…"

"Recruiting? What do you mean?"

"If you live you'll see one day," Juzo sighed. "It's time to end this. Hidden Mist Jutsu!" he said after stabbing his sword into the ground and forming a few hand seals. A heavy mist began to fill the area and obscure Juzo from view.

"I couldn't agree more. Iron Style: Black Steel," Ken said as he formed his own hand seals before his body became covered in reinforced iron.

"Oh? So that is your strongest technique? It seems you have been going easy on me. Let's see if it can withstand this!" Juzo said as he was suddenly right behind Ken, swinging his sword. Ken allowed himself to be hit and was shocked when he began flying across the canyon and into a wall. He didn't know that the Executioner's Blade was chipped by that swing, but he did know that the sword packed a punch.

"Iron Style: Iron Vortex!" he yelled out as he pointed his palms where Juzo used to be. Two medium sized drills with spikes came out of his palms at high speeds while spinning. They cut through the mist right towards Juzo, who decided to block with his sword. They went through the sword like butter and tore into Juzo's stomach, who coughed up… water?

"Shit," Ken said before forming a few more hand seals. The mist steadily began to reform so there wasn't much point in trying to get rid of it since it would just make himself open for attack. That left him with one more option, his newest jutsu. "Iron Style: Tracking Iron Falcons," he said as five birds with extremely sharp beaks flew out of his back. They looked like, well, a falcon and had black stripes running down their grey frame. Their beaks looked like Ken's Iron Vortex jutsu as they were more drills than beaks. They were the same as his snakes in that he had to recognize his enemy's chakra for them to actually track them, and with the mist everywhere, he could definitely do that. However, the person's chakra was much more potent than the mist or even water clones, and his falcons recognized that and would track the most potent chakra in the area.

"Go," Ken said simply as the falcons stopped circling him and cut through the mist straight towards where Juzo apparently was. This was an S-rank jutsu along with his Black Steel because of their tracking capabilities and their attack as well as their movement. However, he would not be able to use the jutsu again for a while thanks to its chakra cost and his Black Steel Jutsu would wear off in just a few minutes. Even if the fight ended soon, Ken realized that Shizuka and Taka-san might not have been able to defeat Raiga so he needed all the chakra he could get. That being said, Ken popped a chakra pill just as the mist began to clear and he saw Juzo swinging wildly at three falcons with one arm.

Two were on the ground, smashed to bits, and one of the three remaining was missing a wing and was just smashed as well. Juzo was looked worse for wear with blood pouring out of his arm, his shoulder, his leg, and his side. Ken watched on as a falcon drilled right through the sword he was swinging at them with, making a large hole in it. The other falcon was flying towards Juzo's neck at very high speeds while he was distracted, that was also why it was an S-rank jutsu, the birds were intelligent, when two bolts of lightning hit both falcons, making them burst apart and fall to the ground. Ken's eyes widened as Juzo dropped to one knee on the ground, staring at him hatefully for breaking his sword as Raiga leapt in front of him. Ken cursed as he looked over the twin sword wielding swordsman. He looked like he had just come out of a light sparring season instead of a fight, with the only wound on him being a thin cut across his chest.

"Well, well, looks like you're a bit beat up huh Juzo? You might need a funeral after all," Raiga laughed while looking at his fallen comrade. Ken saw a moment of distraction and launched a kunai towards the swordsman. Raiga looked back at Ken quickly and cut the kunai down the middle with one of his swords while smirking. "Oh, do you want a funeral too? Your damn comrades escaped right before I was able to give them one, maybe you will make up for it," Raiga said as he began to cry about the lack of a funeral given.

"That's enough Raiga, he has proven himself worthy to join our organization, we need to tell Leader about the news. Remember, you are not to fight him after he has proven himself," Juzo said while steadily losing blood from his many wounds.

"Tsk, fine. We'll meet again someday Black Steel, and then I will give you the most beautiful funeral anyone has ever seen. Let's go Juzo, I'd love to hear how you got your ass whooped on the way," Raiga laughed as he picked up Juzo.

"Let it be known Ken-san, if you refuse our offer later, you will see me again. And I won't fall for the same trick twice…" Juzo said weakly before Raiga shunshined away, with sparks falling around where they used to be.

"Damn… I need to tell Orochimaru-sama about this, and find the others," Ken said as he looked around the battlefield. He deactivated his Black Steel Jutsu and realized that he would have to use a lot of earth jutsu to fix the landscape and he would have to pick up all of his iron so that no-one knew what happened. "Well, I might as well find the others. Iron Style: Tracking Iron Hawk Jutsu," Ken said as he formed a few hand seals and an iron hawk flew out of his back. He had familiarized himself with the chakra of both Taka-san and Shizuka before the mission began and this jutsu had a much higher tracking range than his snake and falcon ones. However, it had nothing for attack, forsaking its beak for another eye behind a telescope like device. "Go and find Shizuka and Gurifin, tell them that the enemy has fled and to tell me if they need assistance getting back to Oto. Here, take this with you," Ken said as he tossed a few extra chakra pills to his hawk, which it caught in the basket it had on its back. This left him with two more pills, he always carried a lot for missions, so he would have to conserve his chakra more. He also pulled out a scroll and quickly wrote the information that he wanted his comrades to know and put it into the basket as well.

The hawk needed no more prompting to start circling the area above Ken's head. The hawk would circle until it could not sense what it was looking for, then go to the edge of its range, a few hundred yards, and start circling again. It only a day it could cover about half of Fire Country and Shizuka and Taka-san would probably be found in mere hours. Ken nodded at the iron bird as it circled overhead and began cleaning up the area. It wouldn't do for some Iwa shinobi to see his unique jutsu after all…

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

"NO, NO, PLEASE!" a man's voice cried out as he watched his village burn down around him. They didn't know what had happened, one minute they were all laughing and cheering about one of their villagers being promoted to advisor for the new emperor, a weak man who replaced the old one after he was assassinated, when a demon stood up from the table in the bar they were celebrating in and started slaughtering everyone.

"Now, now, come on, Jashin doesn't like beggars," the demon said as he beheaded the crying man. Hidan smiled as he looked around the burning village as many screams filled the air. That smile quickly turned into a frown when he realized that his mission was very close to over. Most of the Land of Frost's army was gone, as well as all but two government officials who had both gone into hiding. He had even killed a few Kumo chunin who had been hired to check on the rumors of a demon killing everyone and everything in his path.

"Hmm, well this is kind of boring. Jashin doesn't like weak sacrifices…" Hidan muttered as he looked around the burning village again and noticed that there were mostly ashes left. Ah, he would have to thank that Oto ninja sent to train him in his first month there for the fire jutsu and scythe lessons. Burning people was almost as fun as sacrificing them, though he could only do that if they had a chakra system.

"Well, I might as well leave and give my report. It has been a year since my last one after all. Maybe if I ask nicely, they will let me lead the invasion force," Hidan laughed as he left the burning village, leaving many burned and scarred bodies behind.

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

Hiruzen looked over the reports from the Land of Frost with a critical eye. It seemed like the entire country was now basically defenseless, and Hiruzen still could not find out why. All he got were reports modified by the Land of Sound, as the new combined land of the Land of Rice Patties and the Land of Hot Water was called. Speaking of them, they were getting very powerful as of late… too powerful.

He would have to take care of that soon, or at least keep an eye on them. If they got too big and powerful they could become the Sixth Great Shinobi Village, and five were enough in his opinion. If a sixth one that accepted even missing ninja from other villages came in, then the wars that were sure to follow would be much, much worse than the ones before. It was time he looked into their village, the Hidden Sound if he wasn't mistaken.

He looked up and signaled for an Anbu to appear in front of him. "Tiger-san, please get me Kakashi Hatake. I have a mission for him." The Anbu nodded before shunshining out of his office and into the village. Hiruzen could only hope this did not start a war.

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

Akuma and Neji both looked at the gates of Otogakure longingly as they started to pack. In one day, they were going to leave the village for the first time, or the first time in years for Neji, and they couldn't wait. Finally, they would be getting the rest of their squad and actually going on missions. That had been all Akuma would talk about for the past year, much to Neji's annoyance, and that had not changed. "You all packed Neji?"

"Yes, Akuma-taicho, I have been ready for the past hour while you pack your bags full of ramen."

Akuma rolled his eyes as he pulled out a scroll and sealed up the bags he had packed. "Jeez, I'm just trying to help. For your rudeness, you must buy me some Ichiraku's." Neji groaned but did not resist as Akuma dragged Neji off to his new favorite food stand. From the rooftops, Orochimaru watched with a sad look in his eye. He knew that soon his son would be a shinobi first and his son second. It was an emotional thought but Orochimaru supposed that seven years was enough time to bond with his son. Now, he would have to do everything in his power to protect him, and he had A LOT of power…

121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212

 **AN: And that ends the bigger time skips that I have done. Now, there will still be time skips but this is where the real story begins. It took a while, but we are finally here and the storyline will probably go by faster thanks to longer chapters and all. Also, Hidan's first mission is over, now what is in store for him. And Ken was actually contacted by the Akatsuki, how will they recruit him I wonder? Find out in the next chapter, and see how Akuma will recruit his team. I hope you have enjoyed this chapter and don't forget to rate and review. Until next time!**


	9. Sorry

**Hey, I am sorry to say this, but I will be taking a small break from Fanfiction for a little while. Someone very dear to me has recently died and I just can't get my mind in the right place to write right now. I will post more content as soon as possible but, like I said, I am just not in the right mind right now. Thank you all for following and favoriting and reviewing this story and I appreciate all of you very much.**


	10. Thank You

**Hello, I just want to say thank you to everyone. I know I am back sooner than anyone thought I would so I want to explain what is going on and what exactly happened. On March 26, 2017, my grandmother passed away. She passed peacefully while my family and I were watching the baptism of the newest addition to our family, my cousin Jamie. I was devastated and never took grief very well, some misguided notion that I had to be the strongest there so that I could help everyone get through it. However, I had about 500 words left in the newest chapter of the Snake's Successor so I thought 'maybe I could finish that real quick' and I did. I then thought that since I did that much I could still write stories on here. I was very, very wrong. Every chapter I wrote was so bad and sometimes I just broke down in the middle of writing. I was too stubborn to admit that I needed a break until Thursday, one day after the funeral. Now, three days afterwards, I am feeling good enough to write again as well as I did before. It may not seem like a long break, but to be perfectly honest, I cannot stand not writing and I think it is time for me to return to it. I would like to thank all of the people on here who offered their condolences, my faithful followers who stayed even though they didn't know when the next chapter would come up, and my friends and family for helping me get through this grief. I still don't know when I'm going to write as well as I did before, but hopefully it won't take much longer to do so. Now, I would like to talk about all of my stories I am working on from oldest ones to the newest ones. If you don't care about the ones that you are not reading just skip to the one you are. Also, I am not going to explain the entire story to everyone. If you want to know what it is, read the summaries on my profile.**

 **The Prince's General: For those that don't know, this is my first and only Dragon Ball Z story and is one of my oldest. I have not updated in months because I can't find a good way to write the next chapter and I just don't want to. It is about an OC character being Vegeta's bodyguard and best friend throughout the story, if you want more information read the summary, and it has great promise and I've thought up major plot points in the story. However, I always find myself wanting to play on Xbox, or my computer, or write Naruto fanfiction instead and end up never working on this story. For that I am sorry, but it is not going to change any time soon. Maybe one day I will work on this story again but that is not until I want to do it more than the others.**

 **The Snake's Successor: This is by far my favorite story to write and you guys can probably see that in all of the updates I do. Basically it is what would have happened if Naruto was kidnapped by Orochimaru and raised by him, if he was actually a better person than people thought anyway. I have the major plot points picked out, and may add more in the future, and will probably write a sequel at a certain point in the story just because how long it is going to be. I am a huge fan of detailed summaries and detailed descriptions so it will take a little while to finish this story, but I will try to keep you all interested the whole time.**

 **A Demon's Mercy: This is another of my stories that I am kind of interested in. The problem is that I am still not 100% sure what I want to do with it. What I want to do eventually is have Sarutobi end the war before it even begins and show everyone the true side of Naruto Uzumaki over time but I have trouble getting to that point. I can still do it however, but it is a bit more difficult for me to write this story because it is so different from all of my others. However, I am not giving it up, it just will take longer to update than other stories.**

 **The Shinobi Alchemist: This is one of my stories that I am most interested in and I am actually excited to get to the points I want to. The problem is, writing about baby years is BORING and there is not much going on in this time period in Naruto. That is one of the reasons that it is taking so long to update this story, because it is very hard for me to find a way to make the world seen from a baby's eyes interesting. I will find a way eventually to move this story along so don't worry though.**

 **The Transforming Demon: This is another story I am very interested in. This story is actually different from the others since I did not really think how few monsters that Naruto is able to transform into are actually in the Fairy Tail world. This is why, even though I love writing it, it takes a bit more time for me to write it since I either have to create a new monster from scratch with a description or research one weak enough for Naruto to kill for now. Anyway, not only that but I am busy writing other stories before this one, like the Snake's Successor or The Shinobi Alchemist. However, don't fret because I love writing this story and won't give it up soon.**

 **Akatsuki Antics: This story is hysterical to me and I already have a new idea planned for it. This is my first complete crack fic and I love it. I hope to add more and more chapters in the future that are just as funny as the wrathful pocky god.**

 **Anyway, those are all the stories I am currently working on and I want to thank everyone one more time for being so considerate of my situation. Once again, I know it is sooner than you all thought my break would take, but you have no idea how much I appreciated all of you guys' support. Hopefully, nothing like this will happen again anytime soon and I can have a clear mind while writing. I will see you all in the next chapter of your respective stories, goodbye and really, thank you.**


	11. AN 1

**AN: Hey guys, I regret to inform you that these stories will be on hiatus until further notice:**

 **A Demon's Mercy**

 **The Shinobi Alchemist**

 **The Prince's General**

 **Now, before you get mad, this is because I cannot focus on all of these stories at once so these stories will wait until I complete my other ones. Once one is completed another one will take its place. The ones I am still writing at the moment are:**

 **Snake's Successor**

 **2\. The Transforming Demon**

 **3\. A new story that I hope you will all enjoy**

 **Now, this does not mean that I will not be completing those stories eventually, it just means that I will not be writing or updating in a while. Also, I want to apologize for posting the announcements about my grandmother's death. That was immature of me and none of you should have been troubled with that knowledge. Because of that I will be deleting the announcements from every story except for TSS as it is my most popular story and they were the ones who had the most right to know something like that. Until I write again, I'll see you guys later.**


End file.
